


The Right-Way-Up

by FrancescaFiona



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: AU, Alternate Dimensions, Bittersweet Ending, Child Abuse, Cold War, Destiny, F/M, Fake Identities, Living Sara Hopper, M/M, Moral Dilemma, Multiple AU, Redemption, References to Drugs, Romance Against The Odds, Self-Sacrifice, Shapeshifter, Some cheerfulness - don't worry, Suicide Attempt, Swearing, The 'Man', True Love, reference to PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-03 13:11:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 20,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14569737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancescaFiona/pseuds/FrancescaFiona
Summary: *Now completed*(Set between the first and second series.)Guess what? Turns out Hawkins' Lab has a knack for disturbing moral compasses too, as Chief Hopper really comes to appreciate after finding a woman in the woods ... trapped in a Demagorgon's body.Because who this Demagorgon actually is ... is someone that Hopper prayed to God was dead.However, with her own secrets, Number Fourteen may just be the key to unlocking the mystery of the lab's work and Will's spontaneous journeys to the Upside-Down.PTSD? Hah! I think not...





	1. Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! 
> 
> The character of 'Auntie'/'Tina' is based upon the woman I think was called Conny (who was Brenner's second-in-command), so I'll say that she, along with the other characters, don't belong to me. (Phew, that's the disclaimer out of the way.)
> 
> Secondly, I've rated this 'teen and upwards' purely for the references to the Cold War, which, without a basic knowledge of, the story may not make as much sense. Leading on from that, I'm not trying to be politically offensive, just historically accurate and true to the series. And no, the Russians are NOT meant to be the baddies. (Hi to anyone from Russia, by the way.)
> 
> Also, this is on it's way s-l-o-w-l-y because I'm busy at the moment, so bear with.
> 
> O...kay then. I think that's everything. So, without further ado...

Hopper turned fitfully. 

 

He was in the Middle School. He was running, gun in hand, desperate to protect Eleven, Joyce and the kids. 

Then all was chaos. 

He saw the Demagorgon advance on El’s Papa, then the scene shifted and he watched El’s ‘Auntie’ point a gun at the kids. She’s going to shoot them…

…But then the Demagorgon rushes for her and the blonde woman is carried, _screaming,_ through the wall to die in the Upside-Down.

 

But then El...

El was advancing on the monster, giving all the power she could.

It disintegrated… but took El with it-

 

Hopper woke with a start, the phone was ringing. Who the hell called at eleven at night on a Friday? He wondered whether there had been a car accident, he assumed it was a police call. That’s why he was surprised when he heard Joyce’s voice on the phone.

 

“Er…Hopper,” she said, with a note of hysterics. “I know it’s late and I’m sorry, but…you…please could you get down here…we…we’re having a bit of an emergency.”

“Hang tight Joyce,” he replied calmly, guessing that this was a Will emergency and so she couldn’t speak openly on the phone line. “I’ll be right with you.”

 

He walked to where Eleven was sleeping, still in front of the TV. He felt a twinge of guilt and carried her to her bed instead.

 

“Hey, El?” he said softly, shaking her a little.

She grunted sleepily.

“I just have to go and help Will,” he continued. “You stay here and I’ll be back soon.”

“When?” asked El.

This was always important.

“At the latest, when the big hand points to the twelve and the small hand points to the one, okay? So that’s two hours.”

“One O’clock?” she asked sleepily and Hopper nodded, proud.

She was learning.

 

She nodded her agreement to this time and Hopper rushed out of the door.

 

Joyce practically _pounced_ upon Hopper as he entered the Byers’ house. He saw Jonathan, Will’s older brother, standing anxiously in the corner of the room next to Will.

“Joyce,” Hopper said in his clam baritone. “What happened?”

“It’s Will!” she gasped. “He’s…he’s having some sort of nightmare and we can’t wake him up.”

 

As if to demonstrate her point, the boy started whimpering.

Hopper strode over to him.

“Will!” he said loudly, shaking the boy.

“Hopper!” shouted Will.

“Will, yes! It’s me! Talk to me buddy what’s going on?”

Seemingly in response, Will’s eyes snapped open.

“Have to find Hopper!” he panted desperately.

“Will I am right here,” said Hopper urgently. “Look at me!”

 

Joyce was weeping.

 

“Hopper help me!” shouted Will, writhing. “I’m trapped! I’m trapped!”

Hopper could see how much anguish was in Will’s un-seeing eyes. Anguish that shouldn’t have been there.

 

And then as soon as the thrashing started, it stopped again and Will went limp in his mother’s arms and started snoring softly in time to his mother’s terrified sobs.

 

Hopper shook him awake.

“Hey bud, it’s Hopper. You okay? You were having a bit of a moment there.”

 

Will looked around with alarm.

 

“M..Mom?” he said softly.

“Yes,” sobbed Joyce, leaping upon her child. “Yes, I’m here for you honey!”

 

Hopper got up and turned to Jonathan.

 

“Hey, c’mere”, he said, leading the teen out of the room. “So Jonathan, how long’s this been going on for tonight?”

“Er…it started…” began Jonathan shakily. “…Must have been about three minutes before Mom called you. He was fine before bed then we…we heard all this shouting. At…at first it wasn’t distinct but after about fifteen minutes he suddenly shouted “Hopper’s car” and … “He knows,” and stuff like that. It…it hasn’t happened before, not like that I mean.”

 

Hopper put his hand to his forehead to think.

“It could have been a flashback,” he reasoned. “I’m sure something in the autumn would have matched up to that.”

Jonathan shook his head.

“No!” he said earnestly. “He _knew_ where you were, he shouted out when you turned not the driveway, before any of us heard the car. He was…he was somewhere else.”

Hopper considered this.

Gah…Goddamn it! 

 

“Kay,” sighed the Chief. “It seems to have stopped now but keep an eye on him. Maybe he could sleep in your room tonight or something.”

Jonathan nodded, still spooked.

“Just watch that kid,” said Hopper gravely, jabbing his finger in Will’s direction. “I’m serious. I don’t think his diagnosis is completely accurate.”

 


	2. The Truce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper makes a new friend.

As Hopper was driving back to the cabin in the woods, he was agitated. He was thinking about Will, and Joyce. It was very clear now that they were still in deep shit. 

 

So… the doctors said that Will had _PTSD_ but that didn’t…somehow that just didn’t sound _right_ to Hopper. Sure, it was the most _logical_ explanation, but when Will went missing, the logical explanation for _Joyce’s_ madness was grief but _she_ had been right. This was the same. These days the strangest explanation for things usually turned out to be correct. And, hey, what _was_ logical about any of this?

 

Hopper was so absorbed in his thoughts that we was totally unprepared as an animal darted across the road. It was _big._ It almost looked like a…

 

“Holy shit!” shouted Hopper.

 

Now _that_ was the Demagorgon. One hundred percent. He wasn’t just imagining it. He pulled the truck over sharply.

 

Shit. He was alone and he knew it wasn’t sensible to go after it but it was heading towards town, God only knows…

 

Decision made, Hopper loaded his gun and raced out of the vehicle.

 

“Where are you…” he muttered as he charged through the forest. “Where are you you son of a bitch. You’re meant to be dead.”

 

He wound up in a clearing and jumped out of his skin when he heard a bird fly out of the trees nearby. It was here.

 

He saw it. The Demagorgon. And it saw him.

 

Hopper held his gun ready, aiming at the beast, ready to put a bullet in it when it lunged to attack but then the Demagorgon did something strange. It slowly backed away from Hopper and held it’s long arms up in…surrender?

 

Hopper held his gun steady nonetheless. He doubted the Demagorgon sign language was the same as humans’. He had no idea what it was doing.

 

A strange kind of standoff ensued. Hopper could shoot, but the monster could lunge. For some reason Hopper could tell that the beast sensed he had a weapon. How intelligent was it anyway? Hopper stared at the thing and got a proper look at every inch of it’s hideousness, the hideousness that walked forwards very slowly and then got down on it’s knees.

 

“The hell?” gasped Hopper, what was it _doing?_

 

Then, the beast held up two of it’s…digits (you couldn’t really call them fingers) towards Hopper, palm first. There was no mistaking that one.

 

“Peace,” breathed Hopper. “Holy… _shit.”_

The beast… _nodded?_

“What, you understand me?” shuddered Hopper, in shock.

Hopper got another nod.

“O-okay,” he said shakily. “Do you…are you trying to communicate with me? Is this what this is about?”

 

Again, it nodded.

“Did you take those people?” Hopper asked, he had to know if this monster was aware of what it had done.

It shook it’s head and gestured vaguely to the space beside it.

“Others? Others did?”

The monster gave him a thumbs up. True.

“But you didn’t?” asked Hopper, wondering suddenly if the beast was advanced enough to lie.

It shook it’s head. Negative. Then it reached, almost imploringly to Hopper. He’d never seen an animal do something like that. God, it just seemed so…

 

“Were you…were you human once?” he asked breathily, struck suddenly by a horrible inspiration.

It nodded.

“Okay,” said Hopper, trying not to freak out. “So were you a man or a woman?”

The Demagorgon cupped it’s hands under it’s chest. Woman.

 

“Are you…stuck like this?” Hopper queried, thinking to was better just to go along with it.

It nodded and then slumped on the floor with it’s grisly head in it’s hands, despairing. 

“Hey,” cried Hopper. “It’s okay. We’ll…we’ll figure this out. How’d it happen?”

The monster pointed through the trees and with a jolt, Hopper thought something else was there but no, it was pointing to something else.

 

“I don’t…”

The monster shook it’s head and waved it’s hands, okay, that was a long shot, try again.

It mimed…holding something and then moving it’s hand towards it like…pouring.

“At…at the bar?” Hopper asked.

The monsters hands flopped to it’s side. Hopper imagined the woman in there giving him a withering look. No, of course this didn’t happen at the goddamn _bar._

 

“Okay, dumb guess,” allowed Hopper, his bad.

The monster mimed something else, typing on a keyboard…or playing the piano, Hopper couldn’t tell. Then it threw it arms out wide and drew the biggest box it could and pretended to shield it eyes (if it had had any) from the sun as it looked up.

 

“Big…” said Hopper. 

The monster nodded then jabbed its arm impatiently through the trees again, away from town.

“A big thing that way,” said Hopper excitedly, the truth dawning. “Hawkins Lab!”

The monster nodded furiously.

 

“Holy shit!” spluttered Hopper. “The _lab_ did this to you?”

Hopper wasn’t exactly surprised but he was still disgusted. He was most definitely on the monster’s side.

 

Then, the Demagorgon started gesturing furiously with it’s hands.

 

“I don’t know what you mean!” cried Hopper in frustration.

It really was difficult to read someone’s expression if they didn’t have a face.

The Demagorgon shook it’s head and slapped it’s appendage to where it’s forehead should have been. Hopper almost smiled at how human the gesture was.

 

The creature held out it’s hands. Okay. Try again.

 

It gestured to Hopper, then to it’s head, then to itself.

 

“I. .I understand you?”offered Hopper.

It shook it’s head. No, that wasn’t it.

“Er…okay, I…get in your head?” he tried.

Again no joy.

 

The creature pointed to it’s head again. This was the word that Hopper kept getting wrong.

 

“Kay, so ‘I’ and ‘you’ are correct,” he said, inclining his head to ask the question.

The Demagorgon nodded.

 Hopper thought for a moment.

“I… _see_ you?” he asked tentatively. “No. I… _remember_ you. No. I… _know_ you? I… _bel-“_

The monster clapped it’s hands triumphantly.

“Oh, I got it?” asked Hopper, disbelievingly. “I _know_ you?”

 

The beast nodded.

 

A strange feeling crept over Hopper. The beast had sought him out, a miracle. It was a female. Was it…?…No, it couldn’t be…his…his _daughter?_

 

“Oh my God…” he choked. “What’s your name?”

 

The creature writhed in frustration. How the _hell_ was she supposed to mime that?

 

“Okay,” said Hopper, as calmly as he could. “Maybe you could write out what you mean.”

The Demagorgon gestured around, rather sarcastically. With _what?_

 

_“Could_ you write?” asked Hopper, seized with new enthusiasm. “Would that be possible?”

The monster wobbled it’s head back and fourth. Maybe. Worth a go.

 

“Okay then,” said Hopper. "How about I meet you here tomorrow night? Same time…if I can find the place again.”

The monster nodded enthusiastically, then dropped to the floor and mimed warming it’s hands against a camp fire. 

“You’ll make a fire?” he asked, more confidently now.

It nodded and gave him a thumbs up, pleased he had been so quick on the uptake.

“That’s a great idea!” he said. “Kay, I’ll give you my lighter. Now you keep that safe, okay, I don’t want a forest fire.”

It nodded and held it to it’s chest. I’ll cherish it.

 

Hopper smiled. 

“Okay, tomorrow, same time, you light a fire. And I may bring someone else with me but they’re nothing to worry about, they won’t hurt you, but we’re gonna have to bring weapons with us just to make sure.”

It nodded agreement. It understood that might be necessary.

 

“Okay,” breathed hopper, holding his hand out. “Shake on it.”

Tentatively, the monster wound it’s clammy appendage around Hopper’s hand.

“Good,” he said. “Just hold tight, we’re going to help you.”

It put its hands over the place where a human heart would have been. Thank you.

 

“Bye”, called Hopper retreating into the trees, watching the beast wave, quite forlornly, after him in receipt.


	3. The Code

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper and Joyce make plans.

At first light, Hopper made the call.

 

“Hey Joyce, it’s Jim.”

“Jim?” she repeated.

He could hear the rustling as she fetched the notebook she’d need for this call. ‘Jim’ always spoke in code.

“Yeah,” said Hopper. “I know it’s early, but I was wondering if you wanted to go fishing today?”

_Get your ass down here._

“I’m thinking of going out to the creek,”

_I’m at the cabin._

“The weather forecast is looking nice”

_Something big is going down._

 

“Oh, right, well I’m free I guess,” said Joyce in her warbly voice, which under the pressure had got even more frantic than normal.

“That’s great,” continued Hopper, sounding natural. “Maybe you could bring a picnic?”

_Don’t bring the kids._

“Er…” said Joyce, leafing through the book again. “What would you like in the picnic?”

_What should I bring with me?_

“You know, I’d just love some potato chips,” replied Hopper.

_Shotgun, loaded._

 

“Er…great!” squeaked Joyce. “What time should I get there?”

“How about…12:30?” Hopper offered, clearly _very_ excited about fishing.

_Nightfall._

“That sounds great!” breathed Joyce. “See you soon!”

“You too!”

 

Hopper hung up. Now all he could do was wait…and try to drag Eleven away from the TV for five minutes.

 

“Hey El”, he called. “There’s something I wanna talk to you about. C’mere.”

 

Reluctantly, El padded into the kitchen, as usual barefoot. She didn’t really _trust_ shoes.

 

“So…El,” he began gingerly. “Last night…”

“Where were you last night?” she asked sharply. “You were late.”

“Yeah,” said Hopper. “Well that’s the thing. Because I had to go check something out. Now, I hate to talk about this El, but when you were in the Upside-Down…did you ever see more than one Demagorgon?”

El looked distant, then…

“No. Why?”

 

“Because I saw one last night,” said Hopper seriously. “And it…communicated with me. It told me it used to be a human woman.”

Eleven looked shocked.

“Talked?” she asked.

“No, we … played a kind of charades. That’s like a kind of guessing game,” he added quickly, seeing the question on it’s way.

Sometimes he forgot how little El actually knew…about anything.

 

“Now El, this lady’s in trouble, okay?” said Hopper. “She said that she was at the lab, just like you, so I was thinking about letting her stay here while Joyce and I figure something out. So she’ll be a Demagorgon in this house. How … do you feel about that?”

 

“Lab,” she said quietly. “Bad.”

“Yeah, I know,” murmured Hopper. “And that’s why we’re gonna help her. She’s like you. They hurt her.”

El shivered.

“Bad men,” she whispered. “Papa. Auntie.”

“Yeah, well they’re gone now so it’s okay,” reassured Hopper.

El nodded. Papa and Auntie were gone.

“She can stay,” she said simply.

 

Hopper sighed with relief. 

“Thank you El. That’s going to mean an awful lot to her. Now, while Joyce and I go and get her. Can I ask you a favour.”

El nodded.

“I’d like you to clean out the spare bedroom a little, as somewhere for her to stay, could you do that?”

 

El looked cheered. She _did_ want to help the lab monster.

 

“Okay El,” announced Hopper. “So when Joyce arrives, we’re going to take the truck and get the Demagorgon-“

“Demi,” said El.

She liked thinking up names. She was still overjoyed that she’d got her own.

Hopper smiled.

“Okay, _Demi_. And when we bring her back, she’d gonna look like the monster, but she won’t hurt you, no matter how scary she seems, okay? I won’t let anything hurt you.”

 

El nodded.

“Okay,” she whispered.

“Good,” said Hopper. “Now, how about some pancakes while we wait?”

 


	4. Auntie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper's hopes go up in flames.

 

“Oh dear _God,”_ gasped Joyce.

“Yeah,” said Hopper darkly, playing with the catch on his gun. “I know.”

“But,” spluttered Joyce. “How-how do you know? You spoke to-“

“Joyce!” said Hopper impatiently. “We _shook_ on it. There is a _human being_ in there. She said she knows me.” 

Hopper didn’t share with Joyce his hopes for Demi’s real identity.

 

Joyce slumped down on the sofa.

“Ice-cream?” offered Eleven kindly, holding out her heaped spoon to Joyce.

“No thank you honey,” she replied weakly.

El shrugged. Suit yourself.

 

“Look,” sighed Hopper. “You don’t have to come if you don't want to, I just _need_ to understand what the hell is going on. I’ll bring a pen and some paper and I’ll see if she write…or even draw what happened to her.”

Joyce looked upset.

“Hopper…but, but what if it was another kid? And what if we can’t fix her?”

Hopper grunted determinedly.

“We’ll fix her,” he said with a nod. “We will. If she can be turned into a monster she can be turned back.”

 

After having armed El with a dustpan and brush, Hopper and Joyce drove in silence to the spot where Demi had run across the road. Hopper pulled up in the place where he could still see his skidded tire tracks from the previous night. There was a plume of smoke above the trees. So far so good.

 

“Kay,” said Hopper. “Here we go”.

Bravely, and clutching their guns, Hopper and Joyce ventured into the woods, towards the smell of smoke.

 

Hopper could hear Joyce’s hitched breathing. She was understandably very afraid, and so should he have been except…for some reason he _trusted_ the monster. He felt a connection. She had found him. And there was a possibility…she _could_ be…

 

“Stay behind me,” mumbled Hopper as they neared the clearing and Joyce gratefully obeyed.

 

He stepped through the tree line, cautiously, so as not to scare Demi.

 

Though a small fire was burning, no-one was there.

 

“Wha…?” whispered Joyce.

Hopper shushed her.

“Hey,” he called gently. “If you’re there, it’s just me and the other person I was telling you about. We brought guns like I said but we don’t want to hurt you.”

Nothing.

“This here’s my friend Joyce. We’re going to help you,” said Hopper clearly. “We brought some paper so you could dry and write stuff down.”

 

Hopper’s suspicions were aroused.

 

“Joyce,” he hissed. “Something’s not right. She left.”

He looked around the clearing. He saw the lighter on the ground and bent to pick it up.

“She just left this,” he said, weighing the object thoughtfully in his palm. “Why?”

 

“Hey…Hop?” said Joyce. “Did you notice that yesterday?”

She pointed to something carved into the bark of one of the trees.

Hopper walked towards it, aiming his flashlight beam at it.

 

On the tree was the hastily, and very messily carved word 'run'.

 

They heard the helicopter.

“It’s a trap!” cried Joyce.

“Shit!” cried Hopper. “No it’s not! The lab must have seen the smoke!”

He thrust his flashlight at Joyce and began clawing at the earth.

“Quick, help me put this out! Use damp soil.”

 

With the thrum of the incoming threat in their ears, they smothered the fire and the two of them dashed for cover.

Joyce buried her head in Hoppers chest as the helicopter…passed over them.

 

“Huh?” asked Joyce breathlessly. “Where’s it going?”

As if in answer, they both heard a roar of agony from the old junk yard where Will and his friends liked to hang out.

 

“Demi!” shouted Hopper, charging towards the sound.

“Hopper, wait!” cried Joyce, crashing through the undergrowth behind them. They reached the railroad and ran along it until they come to a point where they could see what was going on. Hopper wished he didn’t have to.

The helicopter had the Demagorgon caught in it’s searchlight and it had opened fire. The Demagorgon roared in pain but didn’t go down. Time for round two. A barrel of burning tar was dropped onto the monster along with a missile. There was the thud of an explosion.

 

Hopper’s 'NO!' was lost in the roar of flames.

 

Satisfied, the helicopter flew away.

 

“Shit, _shit!”_ shouted Hopper as he raced towards the new crater in the junk yard.

 

“Wait, you don’t know it’s dead!” cried Joyce frantically. “And what if it’s not the right one?”

 

However as they got closer, there could be no doubt that this was the right one. Where there should have been a smouldering Demagorgon body, there was instead the naked body of a woman, a woman, in fact, that they _did_ indeed know.

 

“Is that…?” began Joyce shakily, aiming the flashlight beam at what _should_ have been a pile of ashes.

“Auntie,” said Hopper hollowly.

 

They could hear the roar of engines and searchlights in the woods. Hawkins Lab wanted it’s creation back. Without really thinking, Hopper took off his jacket and wrapped it around the unconscious woman, lifting her into his arms.

 

“Hopper! Leave her! She’s one of them anyway!” cried Joyce wildly. “Let’s just _go!”_

“They are _going_ to kill her!” accentuated Hopper slowly. “I am not going to _leave her!”_

 

He said he’d help her. They shook on it.

 

“Hopper!” screeched Joyce.

 

Hopper staggered into the darkness with Joyce at his heels. They got back into the woods and out of sight just as the search party broke the tree cover at the other side of the junk yard.

 

After what seemed like an age of searching, without flashlights so they weren’t seen, Joyce and Hopper launched themselves, shaking, into the truck. With Auntie.

 

Oh _great._

 


	5. Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleven is most certainly NOT impressed.

Dawn was just breaking. Hopper sat in the chair in the spare room with his shoulders on his knees and his hand over his mouth, thinking. He gazed at the still-unconscious woman. Someone who, in his opinion, represented the very _worst_ of humanity.

 

He honestly wanted the Demagorgon version back. The monster had just turned into an even worse one. Though he knew his hopes had been foolish, it felt like a fist in the gut that it wasn’t Sarah. He was angry with himself. Of _course_ it wasn’t Sarah! Sarah was…she was...

He had just felt so… _close_ to the monster.

 

The monster indeed. This woman was responsible, to what extent he didn’t know, for El’s… _unspeakably_ traumatic childhood. She’s here so we get some answers, he told himself.

 

“Bad!” Eleven had screeched madly when they had carried her inside. “Bad!”

El had recognised her too. The argument ‘maybe they just look similar’ had died in Hopper’s mouth upon seeing how sure El was, and how she had screamed before Joyce gently led her, sobbing, away for candy while Hopper dealt with the offending article.

 

In the weak light of the June morning, Hopper stared at the woman. She looked starved and she smelled _awful._ She smelled like the Upside-Down.

 

“Hopper,” said Joyce, slightly hysterically, entering the lightening room with El holding her hand. “Hopper, we _need_ answers.”

While Auntie had been unconscious the whole time, none of the other three had had a wink of sleep between them.

 

“Alright,” said Hopper. “Calm down, I need to think.”

“Bad,” said El, and drew her finger across her neck, pointing to the woman.

“She-she _helped_ them!” hissed Joyce. “She would have let Will _die,_ my _son._ She put that…”

Joyce gestured wildly.

“…Fake _body_ in the quarry! She-she _tortured_ you! She would have killed us both, and Eleven, and the other kids, without _blinking!”_

 

Strangely, Hopper was angry that Joyce had said this.

 

“Joyce, I’m sorry about what happened to Will,” he said, perhaps more sharply than he should have done. “He was in the Upside-Down for a week. It was awful. I know. But she was stuck as one of those… _things_ and then she got _bombed_ so just cut her a little slack.”

 

“Hey El, honey,” said Joyce angrily, wanting a few minutes with Hopper.

Alone.

“Why don’t you get something for this woman to eat?”

“She likes Eggos?” asked Eleven, pleased to note that the woman looked in fairly bad shape.

She looked at the unconscious figure with contempt.

“Or more like salad?” she continued darkly.

Bad people often liked salad.

 

Hopper sighed heavily.

“I’m sure she’d be thrilled with anything that’s not raw meat,” he said wearily.

Eleven retreated, plotting revenge.

 

“What were you thinking?” hissed Joyce. “Bringing _her_ back here? With _Eleven?_ She’ll tell the _lab!”_

“No, she can’t,” retorted Hopper. “She’ll have to tell them _how_ she knows, and then _she’ll_ be the one in that damn water tank!”

 

“So, she’s like Eleven then?” contested Joyce.

“Well, she’s certainly not like us, that’s for sure!” Hopper almost shouted. 

Joyce looked hurt, and so with a sigh, Hopper continued more calmly.

“Joyce, I think she’d prefer if you did this, but can you look for any tattoos, numbers on her wrist of ankle, or the back of her neck.”

Joyce cringed. She didn’t want to touch the woman, she was tinged with the Upside-Down and murder.

 

“Here,” she said after rather tentative search. “Behind her ear.”

“Number?” requested Hopper.

“Er, 014,” quavered Joyce.

“Fourteen. So she’s Fourteen then,” said Hopper, not quite sure what to be more horrified about. “Great.”

“But…she can’t have been from this lab…” said Joyce. “It…it must have been… _another_ one?”

“Yeah,” said Hopper, confused. “And why the hell would she experiment on kids if the same thing had happened to her?”

They looked at each other. They seriously had no idea.

 

At that moment, the woman gave a moan. Hopper slid out his gun.

“Joyce, keep back, I think she’s waking up.”

Auntie rolled over. Her eyelids fluttered…then opened a little.

She saw the two people gazing at her with disgust.

 

“Where I am?” she croaked.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,” said Hopper.

“Who…” she narrowed her eyes. 

They were having trouble with the brighteinig sunlight in the room.

“Ch-chief Hopper?” she asked quietly.

 

Hopper nodded.

“And Chief Hopper doesn’t mind blowing the brains out of a woman who’s technically been dead for six months so…”

He drew up a chair.

“You better start talking. First question, what the hell happened to you?”

 

Auntie took a deep, juddering breath.

“At the school…the thing…it _grabbed_ me. It took me through the wall…”

She wrapped her starved arms around herself.

“It took me…” she whispered. “Into the other dimension. It _left_ me there.”

Hopper and Joyce looked at each other. Jesus _Christ!_

 

“I was there for…I knew I needed to get out,” gulped Auntie. “But I couldn’t and the things…they were all around. I knew the atmosphere was toxic to humans so I tried…I tried the only thing I could thing of and I changed myself into one of the monsters.”

 

Hopper understood why Auntie may have been of scientific value. Shapeshifter. Hot _damn._

 

“And it worked,” she said, eyes unseeing. “The others couldn’t tell I was different and I was able to live…”

She shivered.

“But…I needed to get out so I tried and tried and a few days ago I manage to rip a tree and walked through it. I tried to turn myself back but…I…I couldn’t do it. So I tried again but the sunlight burned.”

She took a shuddering breath.

“And…and I was all alone. But then I saw you drive past. And on the way back I stopped you, because you would know…”

 

Hopped and Joyce shared another look. It sounded bad but they didn’t think she was lying.

 

“So…” said Hopper slowly. “You were in the upside down for six _months?”_

 

He and Joyce had gone there _oh_ so briefly during there search for Will. It was something that Hopper would never forget and he would, without hesitation, accept death over what this woman had lived through.

 

She nodded.

“Or thereabouts, judging by the leaves…unless it’s been a year and a half…”

Auntie laughed humourlessly.

“I don’t know.”

 

Hopper let out a breath. He was finding it hard to keep up his tough interrogator persona with this woman.

“Okay,” he asked, unintentionally gently. “But what about the tattoo? Why are you fourteen?”

She gave a mirthless rasping laugh.

“Why is Eleven ‘Eleven’? It means thirteen kids died before I did.”

 Hopper’s stomach clenched. It was Joyce who went in heavy.

 

“But Eleven is ‘Eleven’ because of _you,”_ she hissed passionately. “She should have been…a normal little girl with a normal life but you would take it all away.”

Auntie looked at the two of them. She reminded Hopper of Eleven. She had the same pain behind her eyes.

 

The emotional pain however quickly became physical pain as a kitchen knife flew through the air and embedded itself in Auntie’s arm. She yelped in pain.

 

“El!” roared Hopper. “Stop!”

“Bad!” screeched El, watching the blood ooze from the puncture with a kind of savage victory.

Hopper wrestled El back.

“Here honey!” said Joyce and stood in front of El.

 

Hopper gingerly pulled the knife out of the woman.

“Here”, he said, handing her a towel.“Put some pressure on…”

 

But the wound had already healed. Eleven looked at her in alarm.

 

“Eleven,” said Hopper carefully. “This is Fourteen.”

El looked with that emotionless but extremely focused look of hers. She was fascinated. Her eyebrows shot upwards into her brown curls in sudden recognition of a fellow lab-rat.

 

“Tina,” said El proudly. 

Hopper and Joyce raised their eyebrows at her.

“Eleven, El,” she said slowly, as if Hopper were stupid, pointing to herself.

She pointed at the woman.

“Fourteen, Tina,”

 

“O-okay?” said Hopper, just daring to hope that Eleven wouldn’t attack her again. “So, this is Tina. Tina…this is El.”

Tina just looked at her.

What the hell could she say?

 

The two of them looked at each other with mistrust.

El’s jaw tightened. She called the shots now. The echoed the words she heard _so_ often from Auntie’s mouth.

“Lock her up.”

 


	6. An Invitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why El is scared of spiders...

El could hear Joyce and Hopper talking in the room where Tina was. She walked in to find the woman unconscious again.

 

“Well? What do we do?” cried Joyce.

“Just…” said Hopper, scrunching up his face in impatience. “Just give it a minute okay? She’s been through an ordeal, let her sleep it off.”

Joyce mouthed wordlessly.

“Sh- _she’s_ been through an ordeal? My _son…”_

 

El looked at Auntie’s face as the two adults continued to bicker. She was unconscious, yes, but her face was not peaceful. El knew where the woman was. She was not sleeping. And something told Eleven that Auntie wanted El to follow her.

 

El went to her own room and put on the blindfold she used to go to the Dark Place.

 

She opened her eyes. A little girl in grey overalls was playing with some building blocks with a young boy. Suddenly the girl vanished to be replaced by the boy’s twin. Then the girl was back. There was someone standing behind El.

 

“That’s you?” she asked Tina.

“Yes,” replied the woman emotionlessly.

“Pretty,” said El absently.

Tina smiled ruefully.

“Occasionally.”

 

El reached out haltingly and gestured for Tina to follow her into the into a different part of the Darkness. Here was a young El, and a younger Tina, and Papa. This was the first time El ever saw Tina.

 

Little El was strapped to a bench with a huge writhing spider secured on a rope about a metre above her face. El was crying. She couldn’t have been ten years old yet.

 

“Now Eleven,” said Tina. “Your Papa and I would like you to move this spider away from you.”

El was whimpering. She didn’t look capable of anything.

“Are you scared of the spider?” asked Tina.

“Y-yes,” said El, shaking.

“Well I suppose that’s understandable,” said Tina. “They bite.”

 

El looked in horror at it’s wriggling legs and beady red eyes.

“No!” she cried desperately. “Please! Papa! _Please!”_

“Your Papa doesn’t want it to hurt you,” said Tina calmly. “That’s why you are allowed to catch it when we drop it. Would you like to be allowed to do that?”

 

Eleven sobbed.

“Eleven, concentrate,” said Tina coldly.

She let the child writhe a little more before she continued.

“Now, this spider has come a long way to be here today. All the way from _Australia_ can you imagine! And she’s just _dying_ to meet you. I wonder where she would like to go first? In your ears? In your nose? Or maybe she’ll wriggle into your mouth and crawl into your stomach and lay her eggs.”

 

“Get it AWAY!” screamed El.

 _“You_ can do that Eleven, if you try,” said Tina. “Will you try?”

El was crying.

“Okay Eleven,” said Tina, unmoved. “I’m going to count to three, and right after I’ve said three, the spider will drop. Catch it. One. Two. Three.”

 

El watched the writhing black shape grow larger, for a fraction of a second before it soured away and splattered to it’s death against the glass of the window.

 

Blood poured from El’s nose but she didn’t care. She cried with relief. She’d make things fly _any_ distance to make sure that… _spider_ creature, never came near her again.

 

Behind the mirror Papa smiled in wonder, approaching the glass with both hands outstretched as if it really _were_ his newborn child that lay behind the glass. He turned to the new supervisor, she had been the one to finally get the girl to do it - this had been her idea.

 

“Consider yourself hired,” he said. “Welcome to the team…”

He looked at El in consideration and then back to the CIA woman.

“…Auntie.”

 

 

El looked at he present-day Tina who watched the scene with a kind of fascinated horror.

“Spider,” said El. “Rat. Bird. Ants. You did it.”

Tina didn’t say anything.

“Bad,” said El. “Worse than him.”

She pointed back to where a man in a lab coat was approaching the young Tina, little _Vierzehn_.

“Yes,” said Tina hoarsely in an extremely El-ish way. “Bad.”

As El dissolved from the Dark, leaving Tina all alone she saw something strange…a pool of water?

She wondered about it for only a moment before she was back in her room.

 


	7. Friends Don't Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina makes her mind up.

_“Goddamn_ it!” shouted Hopper from Tina's room.

El jumped. She had been asleep in the living room. Guess he didn’t wake her up on his way in.

Eleven heard Tina say something back.

The woman been locked in the spare room for a week now and she and Hopper had quite the rapport going.

 

“Hey, El?” Hopper shouted. “Could you fetch me the spare key? I dropped the other one down the side of damn radiator, now the maniac’s gonna get out.”

Tina said something else, it sounded fairly scathing.

 

El went to seek out this key, but she couldn’t find it.

“Kitchen?” she asked.

“Yeah…aw shit," said Hopper, voice muffled. "Yeah, I think so I don’t really remember…”

 

El found the key and walked back to where Hopper’s hand was flapping hopefully in the space under the door. She sent it zooming into his hand.

“Thanks Kiddo,” he said gratefully.

 

El padded into the living room and shortly Hopper joined her, in his uniform.

“Hey, El, there’s something I gotta take care of at the station so how about you go on a walk until I get back. I think there’s some strawberries out in the woods. But don’t go too far okay.”

He looked at El sternly.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” whispered El.

“Now Tina’s locked up and I gave her her lunch so don’t worry about her.”

 

Hopper looked very weary all of a sudden.

 

“Hopper,” said El in her most serious voice. “Tina is bad. She hurt me.”

Hopper’s face crumbled.

“El, and she hurt others in just the same way. But she is sorry. She is…she’s _so_ sorry about all of it. But don’t worry, she’ll be out of your hair soon. You’ll get the justice you deserve.”

 

El considered Hopper.

“You’re going to kill her?”

“Yes,” said Hopper. “I am. Today. Now, how about that walk?”

 

When Hopper got home from the station, he was met by El.

“Hey Kiddo,” he said. “How’s it going?”

El shrugged.

“Off to get strawberries.”

“Alright then,” he said. “But remember we’re not…”

“Stupid,” she said, not missing a beat.

“Kay then,” he grinned. “Be back soon.”

 

Eleven didn’t leave immediately.

“Hopper,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he said, surprised at her tone.

“Thanks,” she sniffed. “For looking after me. I … I love you.”

“Whoa there El, It’s okay,” he went to give her a hug but she pulled away.

 

“I’m going to go now,” she whispered.

“As long as…as long as you feel okay,” frowned Hopper as he scrutinised the kid.

She nodded.

“Goodbye Hopper,” she whispered.

 

Hopper was a little worried about El, so it was relief that he saw her wander back a few minutes later with a basket full of strawberries.

“Hey, that was quick!” he said, impressed.

El just looked at him blankly.

“Enough time,” she said plainly.

She went to turn on the television.

 

She was certainly in a different mood. Hopper looked at her suspiciously.

 

“Would you like some cream on them?” he asked hopefully.

“Yes,” she said, not one for wasting words.

 

Hopper went into the kitchen and saw that the draw was open.

 

“Hey El, did you mess around in the kitchen?”

“Was getting your key,” she said distractedly.

“My…whoa…hold it. My key? To Tina’s room?.”

El nodded.

“Why the hell did you do that?” he asked, slightly angry.

El shrugged.

“You told me to,” she said.

“Wait, _I_ told…” he trailed off, stomach plummeting. “Oh _shit!”_

 

Hopper sprinted down the hallway to Tina’s room.

“Tina,” he called.

No answer.

_“Tina!”_

He unlocked the door frantically and burst into the room. It was empty.

 

“Oh son of a _bitch!”_

 

He dashed into the living room.

“El, we have to get in the car. Now,” he panted. “Tina’s gone.”

 

El’s eyes widened.

“Gone?” she asked.

“Yes! She must have…”

He remembered the El of ten minutes ago who, now he thought about it, was dressed ever so _slightly_ differently.

“Shit! She pretended to be each of us in turn. I forgot she was a goddamn shape shifter!”

Hopper smacked the wall with his fist in frustration.

“She tricked us!” he shouted, furious at the betrayal.

They were going to have to prepare to leave. For good.

 

They leapt in the car after packing the minimum of essentials.

“Okay, so she’s on foot and she won’t have got more than fifteen minutes on us,” muttered Hopper, more to himself than El. “Shit, I can’t believe I trusted her! Joyce was right, she’s off to sell us out to the lab.”

 

El was agitated. She was a friend. Friends don’t lie. She had lied.

 

But wait, had she? What had she _actually_ said in Hopper’s body.

 

“Hopper!” said El urgently as they sped down the road. 

She remembered what she had seen for the merest of seconds in the dark place. 

“Wrong way!”

“No, we have to get to the lab to head her off…” said Hopper impatiently. “Unless she can get to a phone in which case we’re screwed anyway.”

“No Hopper, _quarry,”_ said El insistently.

“El!” he shouted. “This is not the time!”

 

El wrenched the steering wheel with her mind, spinning the car around.

“Eleven Hopper, what have I told you!" shouted Hopper. "That is _dangerous!_ Someone could have _died!”_

“Someone is going to die!” cried El. “Quarry! Hurry!”

 

Hopper began, with a kind of numbness, to understand what was going on. Though he hadn’t realised it, Tina had given him a goodbye. And a proper one.

 


	8. The Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleven to the rescue.

Tina stood at the edge. The very edge. Close enough that no-one would otherwise stand for fear of falling off. But this time, that was the point.

 

Tina felt a kind of dull horror. She knew what she had done. Bad things. She had hurt people but, still, she couldn’t quite bring herself to regret it. And therein lay the problem, because there was actually something _fundamentally_ wrong with her. But she’d always known that. Now it was time to do something about it, end it so she wouldn’t hurt anyone else.

 

She shifted her weight, trembling. She ought to jump now, before she could change her mind but once she did, there was no going back. Nobody would survive a fall from that height, not even her, as long as she died instantly. She shuddered. Her body wasn’t as ready for this as her mind was, but she had to. It was the only way.

 

In a sense it was cowardice. She couldn’t bear to be poked and prodded again the way she had done to other people, _children._ She was not going back to that lab. And she was _not_ going back to the Upside-Down.

 

She jumped.

 

The fall she made wasn't long enough. Halfway to her death, she felt herself jerked upwards by an invisible force. She was slammed onto her back and she skidded painfully through the dust. She was dazed, but through the daze came the familiar face of Subject Eleven.

 

The girl twitched her hand and Tina’s head smacked into the dirt. She saw stars.

 

“Bad,” snarled the girl.

Tina felt her throat constricting of its own accord as Eleven squeezed her hand tighter.

“You don’t do that! You are Hopper’s Friend. Hopper _needs_ Tina!” said El, uncannily observant.

The pressure released.

 

“Just do it,” rasped Tina. 

 

Yes, this was always how it was going to end. 

 

“It’s what you _need_ to do,” she continued passionately. “It will free you. Free the both of us.”

“But not the three of us,” said a deep voice disapprovingly as Tina was losing consciousness.

 

She had just enough strength to feel her body being lifted into a pair of strong arms before the blackness closed in.

 


	9. Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper lets something slip.

“Tina…Tina, I know you can hear me. We going to play sleeping lions all day?”

 

Her head felt fuzzy and her eyesight was blurred when Tina opened her eyes.

“Hopper?” she asked. “Am I…dead?”

“No,” he said sharply. “But it was a _damn_ close thing.”

With a face like thunder, he strode forwards and seized Tina by the shoulders, jolting her back to reality.

“Don’t you _ever_ pull something like that again!”

 

Tina started to cry.

 

“Hopper,” she gasped. “I…I can’t…”

“Shhhh,” said Hopper, gently coming to kneel beside the bed he’d tucked her up in. “It’s okay. I’m not angry at you I just… _Jesus_ Tina!”

He rubbed has hand over his face.

 

“Right, do you still feel like you want to jump?” he asked seriously.

She nodded.

“I….I don’t deserve to liv-“

“Hey, I’m not going to let you say that,” he interjected. “That’s not true. You…did whatever you did, and then you paid for it. End of. You’re…shall we say 'the Right-Way-Up'."

He smiled at his own joke.

 

“Hopper,” she whispered. “I’ve tried everything else. Sleeping pills, cutting, I even put a bullet in my head but nothing works. I can’t…I’m trapped.”

 

I’m trapped. That was what Will had said. Will had _known_ she was coming. Now, how in the _hell_ had he known that?

 

“Look,” said Hopper. “I know you’re unhappy. I get that. But if you stick around for a little longer you’ll be improving _my_ quality of life. I really really like you, okay, and I’m not the kind of guy who says that lightly, trust me.”

Tina looked quite seriously confused.

 

He _liked_ her? Really, really _liked_ her? He was just saying that, right?

 

“I do trust you,” she whispered.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it but I can’t be worrying about you hurting yourself so do you promise not to?” said Hopper gravely.

Tina looked at him.

“Tine do you _promise,”_ said Hopper firmly, shaking her shoulders a little.

“Promise,” she whispered.

 

“Kay, then,”

Hopper got on the bed with Tina, still in his uniform, and put his arms around her protectively.

“Hopper, what are you doing?” she asked, panicked.

“Making sure you don’t escape,” he chuckled. “And giving you a cuddle.”

Tina politely accepted her cuddle.

“Very forward of you,” she muttered, with something of a return to her usual manner.

Hopper laughed.

 

“Tina, we’ll sort things out,” he said. “We’ll get you a new life, a new identity. Let’s pretend Tina _did_ jump.”

Tina didn’t agree.

“No, I like the Tina thing,” she said quietly, wondering when Hopper was planning to let go of her. “Let’s say that ‘Auntie’ jumped instead.”

Hopper looked at Tina. Yeah, he could live with that.

“Deal,” he said confidently. “Promise.”

 

In the days that followed Tina’s suicide attempt, Hopper watched her like a _hawk_. He knew she was unhappy, seriously unhappy but as time went on, it became clear that Tina’s promise was one that she was planning to keep.

 

“Tina,” he said one day. “I’m seriously proud of you, you know that right?”

She shrugged and looked down, though Hopper thought that he might just have seen the shadow of a smile on her lips. 

He could have cried with relief.

 

She was going to be okay.

 

El, on the other hand was not too impressed that this … _Tina_ was here to stay although she had developed a strange fascination with the woman who was more like herself than anyone she’d ever met. After a week of the girl’s rigid suspicion, Tina woke to find a plate of Eggos drenched in much too much syrup sitting on her bedside table and knew that she had been grudgingly accepted by El. Tina she was Hopper’s _friend,_ after all. And she was sorry. And sorry was a concept that El took very seriously.

 

After being forgiven, Tina perked up considerably. And she was ready to talk.

 


	10. Storytime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina tells her story.

“So….how does it work? The shifting?” asked Hopper.

“It’s difficult,” said Tina. “And it takes practice. I need to take time to…learn a person before I can change into them.”

Hopper requested elaboration with a raise of his eyebrows.

“I don’t know whether it’s related to my ability…” Tina said. “But I’ve always had a gift for reading people, for… _noticing_ things about them. Shifting is a _physical_ ability, but a great deal of it takes place in the mind.”

 

“How did you…how did you get that tattoo?” asked Hopper tactfully.

 

Tina sighed.

 

“I was born in East Germany, in a lab, as part of a Soviet defence programme.”

 

Hopper took in a sharp breath. He felt a stab of _fury._

 

“There were a few of us… but I was always the best student.”

Tina looked very distant.

“I suppose I wanted to develop what I could do…a bit like a kid with a talent for math would enjoy number puzzles. Anyway, as time went on it got ... harsher, as relations with the US worsened and war started to seem more likely.”

 

Tina looked down and started playing with the hem of her skirt.

“It was at this point,” she said quietly. “That I decided to escape. I knew that there was more to the world than just the lab, they’d let me outside a few times. Little did I know that they did this on purpose.”

 

Tina’s voice became robotic. She didn’t do emotions very well.

“They wanted me to attempt escape because that would push my abilities to a higher level.”

She laughed darkly.

“I suppose you could call it self-motivation. And it worked. I practiced and practiced, in secret, I… didn’t want them to know how good I was getting. And one day I changed into a guard, stole a uniform and left. I was _so_ nearly free…I was at the front gate…but my Papa was standing there, waiting.”

 

Tina sounded hollow and Hopper’s heart ached for her. 

 

“After that point I refused to shift. For anyone. So their…persuasion got more and more… _inventive._ I was _desperate._ So desperate that I started clawing at the walls of my room. However, to my astonishment, they fell away to tar under my fingertips and I walked back into my room but it was… _wrong,_ like a mirror image and so cold and dirty and the air made my lungs ache. It was full of ash.”

 

“The Upside-Down,” whispered El.

Tina nodded.

 

“I thought it was a dream,” she said, as if she _were_ dreaming. “So I walked outside. There wasn’t a soul in sight so I ran and ran until I _collapsed.”_

 

Subject Fourteen took a breath.

 

“When I woke,” she said quietly, meeting Hopper’s gaze. “I expected to find myself back in my cell but instead I was in an alleyway in the real world. I was bewildered but I knew I had to run because they would be following me but how the hell could they find me? I could be _anyone.”_

 

“Eventually,” she sighed. “I knew I had to _do_ something…that there was something I could do, so I began to follow someone. He was different to everyone else because he spoke words that I didn’t understand. I followed and with my ability I was able to learn his language quickly, his clothes, the way he spoke, moved and when he went to catch his plane home, I stole his ticket and passport and came to the US.”

 

Hopper looked stunned.

 

“What?” laughed Tina. “Doesn’t it sound far-fetched enough to be true?”

Hopper still looked troubled.

“So you were _how_ old when you got on that plane?” he choked.

Tina laughed mirthlessly at the coincidence.

“Fourteen,” she said flatly.

“Christ,” said the empathic Hopper.

 

He rubbed his palm over his face. He just needed a moment.

 

“But Tina, why?” he implored. _“Why_ did you hurt El and those other kids? When you…”

He flailed his arms as words failed him.

“Hopper,” Tina whispered. “Has _your_ country ever lost a war?”

 

She let the question hang in the air.

 

“Look,” she said at last. “I know someone who can get me a new identity…and El but I’ll need _you_ to get in contact with him. Do you trust me enough to do that? I would understand if you didn’t.”

 

Hopper looked at Tina. He shouldn’t trust her. He shouldn’t but….Oh Goddamn it!

 

“Okay Tina,” he said warningly. “But we take this carefully. I don’t want any of your CIA buddies up my ass.”

She nodded and then smiled. 

“Promise.”

 


	11. A Valentine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tina's...well, she's quite...quite attractive really. When you think about it...

Six months later.

 

 

“So…” said Callahan slyly, leaning over Hopper’s desk. “You and the new Polish woman huh?”

He gestured over to the new Police Receptionist.

 _“Val-en-tina,”_ he said slowly, miming kisses in the air.

 

“She’s East-German,” said Hopper impatiently. “And what in the hell are you talking about?”

“Well, Powell told me you invited her around to your place for Christmas,” Callahan burst out gleefully, waggling his eyebrows.

 

“Okay, first,” said Hopper sternly. “She said she had to think about it, and second she has a kid so I don’t know what you expect we’re going to do, and _third_ it’s only because she’s new here. She doesn’t have any family in the country and I just thought it might be nice for her to have some company.”

“Hey, if she really said she has to think about it, it’s a date,” sniggered Callahan.

 

Powell leaned over eagerly.

“Yeah, and maybe by next Christmas you might have a little family of your own.”

“A three-month-old baby together,” Callahan guffawed.

“Shut up!” said Hopper, though he was smiling. “That’s my business. Besides, she already has a kid.”

He felt the need to repeat this.

“The little spindly one?” asked Powell. “Yeah, I’ve seen her around.”

 

“Well,” said Callahan. “Good on you man.”

He clapped Hopper on the shoulder.

“Just make sure she doesn’t turn into a monster,” he said with a wink.

Hopper smiled.

“Oh, I will.”

 

Things had gone well for Tina. After a long…and rather painful…discussion (during which time it was very fortunate that Tina could heal) it had been agreed that El could pose as Tina’s daughter and use the excuse of homeschooling owing to language barrier as the reason why El didn’t yet attend the Middle School. 

 

 _Tina’s_ compromise was taking on an appearance more like El’s so she now had brown hair and a snub nose in a rather unremarkable face. She only showed any of her real self when it was just her and Hopper alone, when she’d let her natural blue eyes replace the brown ones. 

 

She wore the blue quite frequently actually.

 

Because, despite all, spending time with Tina made Hopper really happy.

 

“Guten Morgen,” said Hopper, handing Tina a cup of coffee at the breakfast table in the cabin.

She was one of the more…enthusiastic of people at seven thirty on Saturday morning.

“Guten Morgen,” she replied much more convincingly since she _had_ actually grown up in Germany.

She smiled at Hopper, giving him the encouragement he needed.

“So Tina,” he said, awkwardly. “I was wondering if you wanted to go see a movie tonight, we could bring El.”

 

“If you’re sure she _wants_ to,” said Tina fugitively.

“It’s time she got out and about,” said Hopper. “Besides, nobody from the lab will be expecting to see El with a mother.”

 

“It’s too risky!” hissed Tina, the realist. _“I_ would have recognised her!”

Hopper looked down, maybe she was right.

“Well…in that case I’ll rent a movie,” he suggested hopefully. “Sound good?”

Tina nodded with a smile.

 

“Remember to buy popcorn,” she said. “Or Elise will go nuts.”

Hopper felt a smile stretch across _his_ face as their eyes locked. It was time.

“Hey, Tina…” he began slowly. “I’ve…I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while that-“

_“HOPPER!”_

 

The spell was efficiently broken as Joyce rushed, unannounced, into the cabin.

“Hopper! Hopper!” she called frantically.

“In here Joyce!” called Hopper, reluctantly breaking his eye-contact.

 

Joyce sprinted into the kitchen.

She stopped dead when she saw Tina.

“What is _she_ doing here?” asked Joyce, eyes widening in…whatever emotion Joyce was feeling (it was often hard to exactly pinpoint).

“I _live_ here,” said Tina calmly, though with an edge of contempt.

Both women had rather a hard time with each other.

 

“Well,” said Joyce loftily, though shaking slightly. “That’s…that’s true. Hopper,” she said. “Can-can we have a talk?”

“Sure,” said Hopper in his characteristically calm manner seeing that this clearly wasn’t an emergency.

“Ou-outside if you wouldn’t mind,” she said, flicking her eyes suggestively towards Tina.

 

“Whatever you want to say you can say in front of Tina,” he said, slightly defensively.

“F-fine!” snapped Joyce. “I’ve seen _two_ of the Hawkins Lab vans drive past the store this morning and I want you to keep Tina home today so she doesn’t rat us out.”

She folded her arms.

 

“Joyce,” began Tina in her new accent. “That would not be a particularly smart thing for me to do. Besides, I don’t want any harm to come to Hopper and El.”

“Huh!” said Joyce, starting to argue as El appeared characteristically silently around the doorway. “Really?”

 

“Joyce,” said Hopper hollowly. “If you heard the things that Tina has told me I…”

Hopper shook his head and looked away. He felt strangely tearful.

“Oh, yeah,” burst Joyce with her face screwed up, waving her arms wildly. “Because that’s all _bound_ to be true. Christ Hopper, she’s _manipulating_ you!”

“Well, founded or not I trust her,” said Hopper firmly. “And I don’t think that-“

“Just because you want to _sleep_ with her!” screamed Joyce.

 

Eleven looked puzzled.

“Sleep with?” she replied with a furrowed brow.

“Don’t worry about that honey,” said Hopper darkly, slowly bringing an accusing gaze to Joyce. “Joyce was just being _inappropriate.”_

 

Hopper _glared_ at her.

 

“Joyce,” he said, gesturing for her to follow him outside as Eleven stared. “A word?”

He led her into the living room.

 

“Look Joyce,” Hopper hissed. “We had our shot, okay? We had our shot at age _seventeen_ but it didn’t work out. Now, you’re happy with Bob so I don’t see why _I_ shouldn’t be allowed to be happy too.”

“But with…with a _murderer?”_ pleaded Joyce _._ _“Hopper!”_

“I _know!_ Joyce! _Please!”_ said Hopper, teeth gritted in frustration.

“But that doesn’t matter?” flapped Joyce. “Because she can shift into a monster. And that’s cute?”

“Joyce, she’s sick,” said Hopper defensively. “She’s sick in her head because she grew up in a lab. But, if _anyone_ can help our kids, it’s _her.”_

“And if anyone can help her it’s _you?”_ asked Joyce scathingly.

“Yeah!” said Hopper boldly. “Maybe I _can.”_


	12. The Boy Who Knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will finally gets his real diagnosis.

It was the evening before Christmas Eve when Joyce could bring herself to speak to Hopper again. Hopper had just managed to sneakily drape his arm over Tina’s shoulders when the phone rang. Grumbling, he answered it, then moments later he, Tina and El were in the car. 

 

Will was in trouble.

 

The boy sat, staring at something the others couldn’t see.

 

“Will!” cried Joyce shrilly, shaking him furiously. “Will! Wake up! Oh my _boy!”_

“Joyce,” said Tina urgently. “Let _me_ talk to him. I can _help_ him.”

“No,” she said firmly. “You are not coming _near_ my son!”

“Joyce _please,”_ begged Hopper, before Tina barged Joyce out of the way.

 

Tina crouched down next to the stunned-looking Will.

“Will,” she said. “What do you see? Is _he_ there?”

 

Is _he_ there? That was a weird question to ask. Joyce and Hoper exchanged a glance. However this _was_ the right question to ask.

 

“He-he is,” stammered Will, hearing Tina.

“The sky monster?” asked Tina.

“Yes,” Will whispered, eyes wide with terror.

“What does he want?” she pressed.

“He wants…” Will shivered. “He wants _me.”_

 

Joyce gasped and lunged for the pair of them but Tina motioned to Hopper to restrain her.

 

“So he knows you’re there?” asked Tina gently.

“Yes…” breathed Will. “And he knows you’re gone.”

 

Tina was the only one in the room he could see.

 

“He…he’s outside,” said Will in a strangled voice.

 

“Stay very still,” commanded Tina, with Will’s clammy hand clasped in her own. “Deep breaths, I’m coming to get you.”

 

Without an explanation, Tina rushed to the wall and started scrabbling at the paper. Under her fingers, the wall began to ooze with darkness and she pulled herself through.

 

She pushed through the creeper-like tendrils to arrive out of Will’s wall in the upside down. It was just her and Will now.

 

“Will” she whispered. “I’m here.”

He was trembling.

 

Tina turned to look out of the window. The falling snow outside the Byer family’s windows had turned to ash.

Tina felt surprisingly at-ease in this hell, perhaps since it had been her home for half a year, and at one point her escape.

 

She could feel that the monster was nearby, just like Will could.

 

“Will,” she said seriously. “I’m going to make you wake up, then you’ll be back home, okay? But you have to _trust me.”_

Will nodded, dumbstruck, though he started fighting as Tina clamped her hand over his nose and mouth, suffocating him.

 

On his kitchen floor, Joyce was at a loss as to what do do. Her son was writhing and straining for apparently no reason.

 

“Will! WILL!” she screeched, grappling with his skinny wrists. “What is she _doing_ to him?”

He jerked awake, gasping for air

 

“Where’s Tina!” he gasped. “Where is she?”

In reply, the wall began to bleed filth and a hand appeared flaggingly through it. Hopper darted forward and tugged Tina through the wall, folding her into a big hug.

 

“Holy shit” exclaimed Jonathan, dashing over to examine the wall which was now…just a wall.

 

All of them were breathing heavily, most of all Will who was still _panting._

 

“You okay bud?” asked Hopper. 

Will nodded. He was one tough kid.

 

“Will,” asked Tina. “How long has this been going on for? These…journeys to the upside-down?”

“Since I was there last year,” he replied quietly, confirming Tina’s suspicion.

Tina rocked back on her heels thinking.

 

“So, five people were taken … no _six,_ including me," she said thoughtfully. "And the others apart form us were taken by the Demagorgon to be fed upon. But when _I_ went to the upside down, it just…well it just sort of _dumped_ me there… _Delivered_ me, almost, then went back to the school. What happened when it got _you_ Will?”

 

“I…I was just in the upside down,” he mumbled, training his solemn brown eyes on Tina. “In this house. And the Demagorgon was gone.”

“And it didn’t try to _eat_ you?” she asked, in interrogator mode.

Will shook his head.

 

“So only Will and I survived, because we weren’t eaten….” mused Tina. “Which makes you wonder…Perhaps there’s something in the Upside-Down that’s fascinated by those with special abilities too. A…Demagorgon Hawkins lab, if you like…”

 

Tina and Hopper shared a look.

 

“Will,” began Hopper. “The night in the summer when I came round, the night I saw Tina as the Deamgorgon you _knew_ about her, didn’t you?”

Will looked puzzled.

“I…I guess, but I didn't see her I just…”

“Just knew,” finished Jonathan who had always noticed his brother’s uncanny observantness.

 

“Joyce,” said Tina. “May I see some of Will’s drawings?”

Joyce dithered but, unable to resist the urge to show off, went to fetch some of Will’s art.

She handed a stack to Tina.

 

Tina selected one, drawn when Will was seven. It looked almost like…

“Will, who is this person?” she said.

Will shrugged.

“Just a person,” he replied meekly.

Tina held the picture up against El.

“Not El?” she asked, inclining her head,

Joyce snatched the picture.

“No!” she said frantically. “No, No! That’s not _possible!_ This was- this was _years_ ago! How in the hell?”

 

“How indeed…” said Tina quietly.

She considered Will this time in her professional capacity. The Number Twelve that never was.

“Joyce…” began Hopper slowly. “Will may have….I think he may have extra abilities, like El and Tina.”

Joyce gave a kind go strangled squeak and then engulfed Will roughly into a boa constrictor’s hug, rocking him back and fourth.

“Will! Oh _Will!”_


	13. Lies, Lies, Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will won't be going to his dad's for New Year, that's for sure.

“So…” asked El. “Will is like me?”

“Yes,” said Tina. “He is.”

“Do…do you want to hurt him?” she asked Tina seriously.

Tina felt a snarl of shame in her stomach.

“No, and I didn’t want to hurt you,” said Tina quietly. “But we were…we were led to believe that it was necessary.”

 

“Necessary?” asked Hopper, realising that he might now get to hear the reason for El’s imprisonment.

Tina looked at the gathered faces. They wouldn’t let this go.

 

“So…” sighed Tina heavily. “You were told that El opened the doorway to the upside-down by accident, correct?”

They nodded.

“Well that’s true…as far as the _scientists_ were concerned. They only needed to know how the experiments were done. The _supervisors_ , including me and Brenner, knew _why._ We were actually hoping that El _would_ open the doorway because it had happened before.”

 

She took as deep breath as she saw five faces digesting this information with varying ease.

 

“A few years ago,” she sighed. “In a _Siberian_ facility, a doorway was opened to the same dimension by a young boy with similar abilities as El. He could… swap things…with his mind. As in, he could look at your coffee mug and fill it with whiskey while some guy at the bar didn’t think he was drunk enough to order coffee by accident.”

 

Hopper raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

 

“We were told,” continued Tina, feeling judgement upon her. “That in this place, the Soviets had found _extremely_ advanced weaponry, and of course we wanted in. However, our agent had been compromised and he lied to us, whether under pressure or not we never knew since nobody has seen or heard from him since.”

 

“The Soviets,” Tina said darkly. “Wanted us to open the doorway because then they could use it as a kind of tunnel into the US. They already had it set up at there end, and were, if you like, already _in_ the tunnel but they needed us to set it up at our end…and we did.”

 

Tina looked pained. 

 

“The doorway provides access and a kind of shortcut between the two nations because distances aren’t always proportional. So in theory, an army could march three steps from Moscow, given the right conditions, and end up in Hawkins.”

 

“Question,” said Hopper, sticking up his hand. “If the Russians could cross the border into the US, couldn’t we do the same to them?”

“We don’t think so,” said Tina flatly. “It seems that the Soviets have a much greater understanding of the dimension and they alone have the know-how to shorten the distance. The only way _we_ could cross over is to do it at exactly the same time as them. However with Will’s…intuition…”

 

She shook her head to clear it.

 

“The _other_ dimension that can be reached is the sub-dimension before the Upside-Down. It’s the place that El can go when she finds people and it’s where I go when I want to…I guess learn a face so I can change my own into it.”

 

“The Dark,” said El quietly.

“Yes,” said Tina. “And this is the _useful_ dimension, just everyone has kind of managed to… _overshoot_ that a little so we have this problem.”

“Will?” asked El quietly. “Can you go to the Dark?”

“Can you sweetheart?” asked Joyce.

Will shook his head, unsure.

 

Jonathan looked troubled.

“So…my brother…he can see the future?” he asked Tina.

“No, I _believe_ he just has a...sense of things," she said with professional detachment. “He’s more in-tune with…well with the _world,_ if you like…and with the Upside-Down…”

Tina began to look excited.

“…And now we have Will, we would be able to-“

 

Hopper shook his head warningly and Tina looked slightly abashed. 

 

Oops. Old habit.

 

“No!” snarled Joyce. “You will _never_ take my son!”

“No I won’t,” said Tina calmly. “I’m just saying that _if_ the time comes, Will may have some terrific opportunities in life, those that others don’t have.”

“How?” asked Jonathan, looking slightly accusing. "How has this happened? He wasn't born in any lab!"

 

How indeed?

 

“Joyce,” said Tina quietly. “I have to ask…did you take any kind of hallucinogenic drugs shortly before or during your pregnancy with Will? So any LSD…Magic Mushrooms…”

“Wha-wha?” spluttered Joyce. “No! Of course not! Why would I…?”

Tina held her hands up in surrender.

 

“How about Will’s father?” she pressed. “Did _he_ use drugs?”

Joyce frantically mouthed and gestured silently. Hopper could sense another bout of hysterics coming on.

 

“Will?” Tina turned to the boy, locked in his mother’s arms. “How about you? Do _you_ know?”

He shook his head.

“Will,” she repeated harshly. “Do you _Know?”_

He closed his eyes tight and exhaled slowly. He was _Thinking._

His eyes snapped open.

 

“Yes,” he gasped.

 

At almost the same moment, the front door slammed shut. They didn’t need Will’s gift to know where Jonathan was off to.

 

“Aw shit!” swore Hopper, racing for the door as Jonathan’s car started. “He’s gone to kick his dad’s head in!”

 

And so he had.


	14. Good Cop, Bad Cop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A different sort of police chase.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” muttered Hopper. “Pull over kid!”

He sped behind Jonathan with his lights flashing on the road to Indianapolis.

“Byers,” he warned under his breath. “Don’t be a dumb-ass!”

 

He knew that Jonathan was upset… but a car chase was not something that _anyone_ needed. Not tonight. Perhaps Will had _known_ it would happen. Perhaps he could see them right now. Perhaps he was having another episode right that minute.

 

Jesus, Hopper was _not_ in the mood for this.

 

“Jonathan,” crackled Hopper, using the loudspeaker on the cruiser. “Pull over, your brother could be in trouble still and neither of us can help him if we’re driving to the city.”

 

Jonathan kept driving the car, and anger kept driving him.

 

“Jonathan,” sighed Hopper heavily.

 

Something in the man’s tone got through to Jonathan. In a way, Chief Hopper was more of a father to him than the man who had cursed Will to the Upside-Down. 

 

He pulled over, to Hopper’s relief.

 

Hopper got out of his truck and waited as Jonathan eased himself, shaking, out of the driver’s seat of his own vehicle.

 

“Jonathan,” said Hopper, holding out his hands. “Thank you.”

The teenager just stared. The explosion was coming. It was coming in five, four, three, two-

 

“THIS IS SO _SCREWED UP!”_ yelled Jonathan, storming towards Hopper. “My brother has superpowers and your Demogorgon _girlfriend_ wants to use him to kill Commies to get back at them for doing the exact same to her! Where does it stop Hopper? Huh? WHERE DOES IT STOP?”

“Jonathan,” said Hopper carefully. “You have. To calm. Down.”

 

Jonathan threw his arms up. He couldn’t…he couldn’t deal with this. Partly because Will was in so much danger but partly because…because it was _Will._ It was always Will…not … _him._

 

He felt sick that he could be jealous of his own brother. A brother whom he loved _so_ much and suffered so _severely._ But plain old Jonathan Byers, who had, at a push, _one_ friend, had room in his heart for love and jealously at the same time. Big kids needed attention too.

 

“Look,” continued Hopper. “Your dad’s a dick. I know. He had been from the _minute_ he started Kindergarten, I remember. But going after him is gonna get you arrested. Understand?”

Jonathan wouldn’t meet his eye.

“Jonathan!” cried Hopper. “Do you _understand?”_

Reluctantly the boy nodded and slumped down hopelessly on the hood of his car.

 

“I’m just so worried,” he choked. “And so angry that my dad did this to Will! To _all_ of us!”

“I know,” said Hopper, taking a seat next to him as it started to snow again.

He put his hat back on.

“But think,” he continued. “If Will wasn’t special he would have been eaten, just like Barbara and we’d have lost him.”

“Yeah,” sniffed Jonathan, wiping his nose unattractively across his sleeve. “I guess.”

“That’s my man,” said Hopper, slapping Jonathan on the shoulder. “Now, let’s get home to your Mom. It’s not going to be pretty.”

“Yeah,” laughed Jonathan. “You got that right.”

 

Jonathan followed the police cruiser home. And yes, Hopper’s prediction _had_ been correct.

 

“Jonathan! Oh God _Jonathan!”_ cried Joyce, barrelling towards her son.

She hugged him then pulled his face to look at hers.

“You _ever_ do that again…” she choked, shaking her head.

 

Tina emerged on the front porch with her arms folded. She looked as though her patience had just had a workout. Honestly, Hopper couldn’t fathom _why_ the two women disliked each other so much.

 

“Jim,” she called. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah,” he shouted back.

 

Tina retreated into the house to relay the news. Hopper watched he go intently.

 

“Hopper!” hissed Joyce. “Were you even listening to me?”

“Huh? Wha?” he replied, dazed, effectively answering her question.

She tutted in annoyance.

“I said, do you want to be taking Eleven home? It’s late.”

 

Hopper checked his watch. Oh, right, yeah. It was nearly midnight.

“Sure, yeah, you’re right,” he said absently, twirling his hat.

Joyce looked at him with concern.

“Hopper, you could stay the night here if you wanted.”

Hopper barely stopped himself from making the joke he wanted to make but it wouldn’t have been appropriate in front of her son.

“Nahhh,” he said. “That’s alright, the snow really isn’t too heavy.”

 

Joyce looked concerned as Hopper gently helped El and Tina into the cruiser. She took him aside.

 

“Hopper,” she said quietly. “Will…What…? What do I do?”

Hopper sighed.

“Joyce, he’s a special kid,” he said. “We’ve always known that and he’s still the same Will that woke up this morning and we shouldn’t treat him any differently.”

Joyce bit her lip nervously and nodded.

 

“And Hopper,” she said. “I don’t trust Tina.”

“Joyce…” he began wearily.

“I know, Hopper,” she interrupted. “I know _you_ trust her and I know that nothing that _I_ say or do can dissuade you so just watch to see is she does anything suspicious.”

Hopper sighed.

“I will do Joyce. Will do.”

 

Looking back, perhaps he really should have…


	15. The Wolf Amongst The Sheep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hopper tells the truth. Others...not so much.

It was everywhere. The _thing._ It wrapped it’s hands around the Upside-Down and it’s fingers pierced the fragile film between that hell and Hawkins. It dug into the soil. Burrowed.

 

The police force had no idea why the crops were dying, but with every phone call that Tina took, she became more sure of what was going on. Finally, _he_ was here. She had to do something.

 

After her time in the upside-down, she couldn’t _not_ know what was in store for the world, she just hadn’t thought that it would happen so _quickly._  

 

It was Will, El and herself, Tina decided. _They_ were the forces that were helping the thing grow here. They were the beings between the realms, not really belonging in either world.

 

She hadn’t told Hopper about the monster. He didn’t need to worry. And Joyce Byers _certainly_ didn’t need to be told. But this couldn’t continue…

 

“Tina!” called Hopper, making her jump out of her thoughts. “You want a lift home?”

“Er, sure,” she said, as if she even had to _think_ about it. “Thank you.”

 

Hopper led her out to his cruiser from the doors of the Police Station and opened the door for her.

“What a gentleman!” she giggled, not complaining as Hopper brushed her arm on purpose on the way past.

 

“So Tina,” said Hopper slowly as the bleak January landscape flashed past them. “I’m going to take you home and you can just chill there while Joyce and I take Will to his appointment at the lab. Eleven and Jonathan are out, but safe.”

“You _really_ won’t tell me where they are? You don’t trust me?” Tina asked incredulously. “Just because of _Joyce?”_

Hopper flushed a little.

 

“No, that’s not true,” he said with a nervous chuckle.

Tina raised a brown eyebrow.

“Okay then,” said Hopper. “Yeah, and they’re at the Wheelers’.”

“Good to know,” said Tina, filing that piece of information away for future use. “I feel like Valentina Schneider ought to know where her own kid is.”

“Nah,” replied Hopper. “She’s European, they like that sort of thing.”

 

They both laughed. It was a magical moment. _So_ magical. And Joyce didn’t manage to ruin it.

 

“So…” said Hopper cautiously, as he cut the engine outside the cabin. “Tina since we…since we have the house to ourselves until tomorrow, I was wondering…”

Hopper scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

“…Y’know…if you’d…if you’d like to make an evening of it.”

 

Tina turned to Hopper, surprised, not by his boldness but by his timing. Then she realised that she was the only one that knew the world was ending. Besides, maybe in times like these it was best not to let things stew.

 

“Sure,” she said with a shy smile. “But you better make this damn appointment quick.”

 

Hopper grinned, relieved, thinking her comment was out of eagerness rather than the need to know how long she’d have to exact her plan.

 

“I’m afraid it may be a few hours long,” he said, brain struggling to think about timings when it was lavishly planning his romantic Friday night. “So let’s say… We’ll crack the champagne open at eight thirty?”

 

Tina beamed at him. Nearly five hours. That was more than enough time, if everything went smoothly.

 

“I can’t wait,” she whispered silkily, summer-sky eyes shining, getting closer… _closer_ …

 


	16. Doctor...Who?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cue Hawkins Lab.

“Will,” said Dr Sam Owens. 

He was the new lead scientist at Hawkins lab, and really, he seemed okay. Better than Brenner anyway. He had been one _seriously_ sinister motherfu-

 

“This is Dr Scott, he’s going to ask you a few questions,” he continued, breaking off Hopper’s thoughts.

“Scott?” asked Will quietly. “Like Star Trek?”

Dr Scott laughed kindly.

“I wish!”

Dr Scott sat down next to Will’s hospital bed, careful not to disturb any of the monitors.

 

“So Will, your Mom tells us you’ve been having some nightmares,” he said, as a prompt.

Will looked quizzically at Hopper and his mother, wondering what he was allowed to say.

“Er…yeah, a few,” he mumbled.

“And your diagnosis is PTSD, is that correct?” asked the doctor, gesturing to the boy’s brimming medical record.

 

The boy nodded.

“What if I were to…” began the doctor. “…Open up the possibility that perhaps what you might be seeing is _true?”_

Hopper looked alarmed.

“I don’t think so, doctor,” he said quickly, worried about where, in light of their recent discovery about Will, this could be going. “As we were told, it’s PTSD. The symptoms fit.”

 

Scott turned to Hopper.

“Officer, the fact that Will is here in the first place," he began smoothly. "I think demonstrates that anything is possible.”

Hopper looked at the scientist with loathing.

“Chief Hopper,” Scott said, in the same infuriating tone, seeing that he was going to be met with resistance. “We are going to have to work together on this one, okay? That means we tell each other the truth. And the truth is that you don’t believe this boy has any disorder stemming from his experience last year.”

 

Hopper threw his hands up.

“I don’t know doc, frankly I don’t even know what this... _PTSD i_ s even meant to _be."_

“Okay,” Scott said smoothly. “So in that case I’d appreciate it if you’d let _me_ do my examination.”

Joyce looked, wide-eyed, between the two men, waiting for Hopper to get violent. That really was an unfortunate trait of his.

 

However, Hopper just smiled stiffly and let the doctor take over. Now wasn’t the time to upset these people.

 

“Now,” said the doctor. “Will..."

He leaned in very close.

"Who am I?”

Will knew he was Dr Scott, he’d just been told so but his mind somehow rebelled against the idea. He shook his head.

“Um…Dr…Scott,” he said eventually. "Yeah, Dr Scott."

The boy looked embarrassed...and troubled.

 

Having secretly proven his point to Dr Owens, Dr Scott turned slowly to Joyce.

 

“Mrs Byers,” the doctor said slowly. “Owning to the results of out examinations, I’m afraid we’re going to have to detain your son for his own safety.”

 

It took a moment for that to sink in.

 

“Wha….? What? How? No! THAT’S MY SON!” Joyce cried, rushing to shield her child. “You can’t take him! All you did was ask him who you were I don't...”

 

Dr Scott was completely unmoved by this show of protectiveness.

“Mrs Byers, please calm down!” he commanded. “I don’t mean right this second or before we’ve all had a good talk about this.”

 

Joyce was howling. The sound put Scott’s teeth on edge. Will started to cry.

 

“Excuse me, doctor,” snarled Hopper, taking the Scott’s arm roughly. “I think we need to have a talk. Outside.”

 

Hopper slammed Scott against the wall outside.

“What the hell is this?” he spat angrily. “You can’t take away her child! We are American Citizens with rights.”

Scott looked at Hopper with a strange haughtiness.

“We can do, whatever we damn please," he countered crossly. "Because soon there will not _be_ a United States of America if we don’t act.”

“You mean the Russians?” shot Hopper.

The doctor shook his head sadly.

 

“No, we have a somewhat more…pressing threat.”

“Oh yeah?” challenged Hopper aggressively.

“Yeah,” replied the doctor calmly. “The upside-down is trying to force it’s way into our world. And it’s working. Notice how all the crops are dying?”

 

Hopper let go of the man with a huff.

“Shit,” he breathed, rubbing his palm over his face.

“Shit indeed,” replied the doctor, glad to have been freed. “So, in order that the monster doesn’t get it’s hands on Will Byers, whom he could use to great effect, we need to keep him safe here.”

 

Hopper snorted incredulously.

“Yeah, right. As _if_ I’m going to let you do that. I know what you people like to do to kids.”

The doctor thought for a moment.

“I know it would be a big step…” he said in a calmly-rehearsed way. “But his mother could live here temporarily with him at first…and we could arrange tutors so that he wouldn’t fall behind with his education.”

Hopper looked like he was about to punch Dr Scott. Scott realised this too.

 

“Tell you what,” he said quickly. “We’ll come and fetch him in a few days, just so everyone can get used to the idea, how’s that sound?”

 

Scott knew there was no way in hell that Hopper would let that happen, so he didn’t buy his “sure, we’ll think about it” for a moment.

 

But the seed had been planted and Tina felt satisfied as she relaxed and let Dr Scott’s body morph back into her own as soon as Hopper, Joyce and Will had been led away.

 

Dr Owens looked up as she entered his office.

“Marge,” he said seriously, having been _extremely_ shocked to have his previous, and officially deceased, boss turn up at the lab an hour earlier with one hell of a story. “What in the _hell_ did _that_ achieve?”

Tina’s face was blank.

“It’s Tina now,” she said blandly.

Owens snorted in disbelief. 

“Like Fourteen?” he asked. “Great.”

Until Hopper, Sam Owens had been the only person who knew Tina’s secret.

 

“And _you_ tell _me_ what it achieved!" said Tina urgently. "Would _you_ have known I wasn’t Scott?”

Dr Owens shook he head. No, he wouldn’t. Tina’s impersonation had been impeccable.

“And you _saw_ how the child hesitated? He knew it wasn’t Scott, though he’d never met him.”

 

“Ma-Tina,” said Owens. “Yes, that is true, but if he’s what you claim…”

Tina shrugged allowing Owens to finish his sentence in his head.

“He is our solution or our downfall,” she said. “We need him. whichever way this goes. Along with Eleven, whom I'm sure I could bring to you.”

She was CIA again.

 

“Now,” she continued briskly, blonde hair glinting under the fluorescent lights. “He will move the child from his home, and while they are hiding…perhaps Byers... wanders into the woods.”

Tina looked at Owens pointedly. She was dead as far as the CIA was concerned so she’d have to work through _him._ Besides, she had a new role to play.

 

Dr Owens looked troubled for a moment.

“Sam,” said Tina gravely. “It is the _only_ way.”

With a tight sigh, he gave her a sharp nod and pressed a radio transmitter into her hand.

She smiled.

“I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop,” she said. “And keep them at the lab a little longer. I need to be home when Hopper gets back.”

 

..........................

 

After a quick exit from the lab, Hopper led the stunned Will and the hysterical Joyce into the car.

“Hopper,” she whispered desperately. “They can’t take Will! They’ll…They’ll…”

Her face crumpled.

“My boy…with his head shaved…locked in a prison!” she choked. _“You can’t let them!”_

“I agree,” said Hopper, without a moment’s hesitation. “I agree.”

 

..........................

 

When the exhausted Hopper got home, it was only the sight of Tina waiting for him with a two plates of delicious food that made the enormity of what he was about to do bearable.

 

“Hopper,” she whispered quietly.

She towards him haltingly with tender steps.

“What’s wrong?” she probed,

 

Hopper pulled Tina into a hug and let her hands rub his shoulders.

“Tina,” he whispered into her brown hair. “We have to go. Now.”

Tina drew away from him.

“Is this about Will?” she asked with professional dishonesty.

Hopper nodded.

“We have to get out of the county,” he muttered to her. “The _state,_ even. They’re going to be looking for us. You wouldn’t…you wouldn’t have to come with us. Not if you didn’t want.”

 

Hopper looked at Tina with such pain, and such _love._ Most other people would definitely feel a stab of guilt at betraying someone as good as this. Even Tina felt a prickle of discomfort, but pushed it aside.

 

“I want to go with you,” she said, truthfully, then even more truthfully. “I...I _want_ you.”

Though it really wasn't the time for that, Hopper looked into Tina's beautiful brown eyes and needed only a few tugs of encouragement before he wholeheartedly agreed with her.

 

Later, with the exhausted Hopper’s dinner re-warming in the microwave and Tina in the shower, Hopper paused only for the briefest of moments why Tina _had_  worn her eyes brown that evening.

 


	17. Lando

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A betrayal and a little game of hide-and-seek.

El sprinted through the January rain with no coat, clutching only Will’s radio. That was the only thing she’d managed to grab before Hopper had told her to run. They had found them. The Bad Men. She ran and ran until her lungs seared but she couldn’t stop until she’d found somewhere to hide.

 

Will’s house. Not safe.

 

Cabin. Not safe.

 

Where _could_ she go?

 

She remembered the last time she had run like this.

 

Mike’s house.

 

She changed course and ran to the Wheeler’s home.

 

Inside, there was a game of chess going on, with a specially customised board and pieces, (thank you Dustin). The intrepid players had no idea that they were never meant to see Will ever again, he’d not been allowed to say goodbye.

 

“No!” the creator shouted. “Lucas, don’t! Let Mike take your Hobbit then you can take his Orc!”

“Then he’ll take my Elf!” cried Mike indignantly, dark hair swishing over his forehead as he talked.

Dustin threw his hands up in frustration! Did he _ever_ learn?

 _“Yes…”_ said Dustin slowly, as if it were Mike’s four-year-old sister he were addressing. “But think! Where does that leave his dragon?”

“I don’t _know!”_ spluttered Mike indignantly. “I can’t see that far ahead!”

 

Lucas chuckled and reached for another potato chip.

“Hey!” yelled Dustin. “You’ll get food on my board!”

Lucas huffed in indignation.

“You let _Mike_ eat!” he said, waving his arms angrily.

“Yeah,” said Dustin in the same imperious tone he’d used with Mike. “But that’s because he doesn’t get crumbs all over the goddamn-“

 

Mike’s radio crackled into life.

“M-Mike?” mumbled a voice.

“Eleven!” Mike cried and rushed to the radio. 

He’d know that sound anywhere. He was surprised to hear it though. Didn’t Chief Hopper like her to be home by sundown?

“Eleven, where are you?” he said urgently, she sounded like she was in trouble.

“Outside,” she mumbled.“Will, can you let me in?”

“Er, sure,” he said, surprised but pleased. “Come round the back. I’ll sneak you in.”

 

Will dashed upstairs out of the basement and crept to the back door. Shivering on the doorstep, soaked with rain, stood El.

 

Will grabbed her by the wrist and scurried her to the others.

 

“El,” cried Lucas, before Will put a finger to his lips, to remind him of the grown-ups in the living room.

“Hiding,” croaked El, mimicking Mike’s gesture.

“Hiding?” replied Lucas. “From who?”

“The Bad Men,” shuddered El. “And Mike?”

She turned to him solemnly and fixed her brow-eyed stare on him.

“They got Will.”

 

“Holy shit!” said Dustin, his hand flying to his forehead. “What happened?”

El hated making long speeches.

“Me and Hopper and Tina and Will’s mom were taking Will, to hide him, because the Bad Men wanted him. It was a secret.”

Yes, a _secret._

“So…how did they _find_ him?” probed Mike.

El shrugged, she honestly didn’t know.

“Nobody else knew,” she whispered quietly.

 

“Oh my God, you guys” Dustin, voice climbing in excitement and dread, eyes wide. “Lando!”

Lucas groaned in frustration

“Goddamn it Dustin. For the _last time._ This. Isn’t. _Star Wars!_ Lando Calrissian does not _exist!”_

But Mike was thinking.

“No,” he said frantically. “Wait. What if it _is_ Lando?”

 

They all shared a panicked look as it dawned on them.

 

“Tina,” said El hollowly.

 

Speak of the devil, they then heard the doorbell ring and the sound of Valentina Schneider greeting Mrs Wheeler cheerfully.

“Shit!” burst Dustin, as they realised that they were effectively trapped in the basement.

“El!” hissed Mike. “Hide!”

She scampered under the table just as the two women came down the stairs.

 

“Elise?” called Tina. “Where are you sweetheart? It’s time to go home.”

 

No! Not _home!_ Thought El desperately.

 

“Mike?” asked his mother. “Where’s El?”

“Sh-she left," he led inexpertly. "Sick.”

He shrugged limply.

His mother threw her hands up in despair.

“Mike!” she said, exasperated. “You should have _told_ me! I could have driven her home! I’m _so_ sorry about this Valentina.”

 

Valentina didn’t look at that disappointed. She actually laughed softly.

“That’s alright Karen,” she said amicably. “I think she’s just _hiding.”_

To their horror, Tina strode straight to the wardrobe and revealed El.

 

Before El could send Tina reeling backwards, the girl collapsed, stung by a small needle in Tina’s palm that nobody else had noticed.

 

“Elise!” cried Valentina, seemingly panicked at her daughter’s sudden and unexplained collapse.

“Oh my God!” gasped Mrs Wheeler. “Ted! Call an ambulance!”

 

The ambulance arrived in record time and the paramedics lifted the prone form of El into the vehicle as her mother got shakily in with her.

 

“NOOOO!” screamed Mike, tears on his face. “Don’t let them take her!”

“Mike! Calm _down!”_ ordered his mother as she struggled to contain his flailing limbs.

Nancy, rushed down the stairs.

“Mike!” she said crossly. “Can you keep it down! I’m trying to-“

Her gasp cut off her sentence as she saw what was going on. Valentina? Wait…wasn’t she also El’s ‘Auntie’? Why was she putting El in the _ambulance?_

 

“Mom!” Nancy pleaded urgently, suddenly understanding what was going on. “They are going to hurt her!”

“THEY’LL KILL HER! THEY’LL KILL HER!” roared Mike, racing after the ambulance which was oddly enough, driving ... _away_ from the hospital.

 

“Both of you calm down!” shouted Mrs Wheeler as little Holly began to cry. “Honestly! I don’t know what’s got in to you.”

 

Mike shared a desperate look with Lucas and Dustin as Nancy stared with horror after the vehicle 

 

Eleven was _doomed._


	18. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> El is Home.

For a second after he opened his heavy eyes, Will thought he might be in the Upside-Down. But no. He was somewhere else.

 

Where _was_ he?

 

Hawkins Lab, his mind replied. He _Knew._

 

“Will? Awake?” asked a small voice from beside him.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “El, what are we doing here?”

Will watched in horror as El drew her finger slowly across her neck. He whimpered as the truth of El’s assumption hit him.

 

“Mom,” he whispered, then shouted: “Mom! Jonathan! Hopper!”

He gasped for breath in the sterile room as he began to panic.

“SOMEBODY _PLEASE!”_

 

El looked at him blankly. She wasn’t in the best of shapes herself, with tracks of tears rolling down her cheeks and blood smeared under her nose. But she knew shouting wouldn't help. It never had.

 

She held a shaking little finger to her lips. Someone was coming.

 

The door banged open and the friendly ‘Dr Scott’ entered, accompanied by the mouthwatering smell of food. Will’s empty stomach _ached._

 

“Hey kids!” he said, kneeling down to where they were huddled together on the floor. “You were pretty tuckered out there, so here, late dinner.”

 

He smiled encouragingly as he put down the cheesey pasta and some cutlery.

 

El leaned forwards to take the food. She was accustomed to being fed in this way. She held the fork to her lips but before she could put it in her mouth-

 

“Stop!” shouted a voice.

 

It took the startled looks of the other two people directed at him to make Will realise that he had spoken.

 

“It's poisoned,” he said, feeling as if the words weren’t really connected to him, but it was true.

 

Dr Scott laughed breathily. Damn, this was going to be harder than he’d hoped. No matter.

 

He lunged for the syringe that he’d used to put El to sleep but before he could plunge it into _either_ of them, the door burst open and there was Hopper. Tina’s heart swelled in her male body before she remembered that he saw he as the enemy, Dr Scott.

“Get away from those kids,” he commanded, aiming a gun at Tina as Dr Scott.

“No,” Scott replied.

“You have _three_ seconds,” warned Hopper, angry. “One. Two. Three.”

Tina stayed put. He wouldn’t shoot. He wouldn’t.

 

But, a man of his word, Hopper shot the doctor.

 

Tina grunted in pain as she felt the bullet being pushed out again by her own body. She was so distracted that she couldn’t hold Scott’s form. She knew she was back to normal as she heard Hopper’s sharp intake of breath.

 

He didn’t say ‘Tina?’ in confusion, he just _looked_ at her. A part of him had been preparing itself for this outcome right from the start. How _could_ he have imagined that she actually _liked_ him? That she _cared_ about him? That he could _change_ her?

 

But he wasn’t completely correct in his assumption of her indifference.

 

She sighed as the backup arrived, but she didn’t order them to execute Hopper.

“Let them go,” she said briskly. “We can do this another way.”

 _“YEAH_ YOU FUCKING CAN!” roared Hopper, hurt morphing into rage at the sight of El in the prison, covered in blood and tears, _his_ little girl. 

The guards lunged at Hopper before he reached Tina. They were a little disoriented too… Wasn’t that a _guy_ a few minutes ago?

 

Ignoring them, Tina looked at Hopper consideringly.

“Chief Hopper, I’m going to have to ask you to come with us,” she said calmly, as if they didn’t know each other.

“I’m not going _anywhere_ until I know you aren’t going to hurt those kids,” he said resolutely.

 

Tina studied him. Chief Jim Hopper.

 

What _drives_ you Jim Hopper? What do you _fear?_

 

“Alright,” she said flatly. “Bring the children with us. I think all of you deserve to know why you’re here."

 


	19. Mirkwood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meddling kids...

Hopper left the lab with the weight of the world on his shoulders. The world was ending. Ending in Hawkins. Ending in everywhere.

 

He steered Will and El into his truck urgently, leaving the lab, and hope, behind him.

 

Hawkins Lab had reluctantly let El and Will go and, as a compromise, Hopper had agreed to work with the lab to counter the ‘problem’, but he only spoke to Sam Owens, and not the woman who had broken his heart.

 

But Hopper was a free spirit and had learned that a chainsaw was usually the best solution to pesky plants so, ignoring Owen’s rather frantic ‘advice’, he decided to get straight to the _root_ of the problem.

 

And this was what Joyce liked to call Hopper’s ‘stupid teenager’ streak so, who better to help him… than some _other_ stupid teenagers.

 

“Now, guys,” said Hopper sternly, gesturing over the steering wheel of his truck. “You are just coming with me as far as the field, then I’m going in _alone,_ got it?”

 

Hopper looked at Jonathan who had that _glint_ in his eye.

 

“Byers?” he asked warningly. _“Got_ it?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jonathan replied eagerly.

“And I don’t want either of you doing anything dumb to show off to Nancy, okay?” Hopper continued. “And Harrington, that’s mostly aimed at you.”

“She’s already impressed with me,” he said smugly, running his hand through his hair. “I don’t need to show off.”

 

He smirked at Nancy who rolled her eyes as she intently studied the map showing the patterns of crop decay.

 

“Okay,” she said, ignoring the sudden explosion of testosterone as Steve and Jonathan glared at each other. “So we’ll need to take the next left, on to Mirkwood. Then…straight ahead and…yeah, straight ahead then the _next_ left.”

 

She leaned back satisfied. She was the smart one.

 

When they arrived (and not a moment too soon or Jonathan and Steve may have continued their fist-fight) Hopper was the first out of the car, hauling a blowtorch, a chainsaw and a shovel with him. The teens followed with their anti-demogorgon gear - shotgun and all. They were ready.

 

“Now, Harrington,” said Hopper, frowning at the ground. “I’m’a need you to dig about…”

 

Hopper slammed the shovel into the ground.

 

“…Here,” he grunted. “Don’t stop until you hit whatever we’re looking for.”

 

“So…” began Steve, trying to disguise his unease. “Nothing’s gonna…come _out_ of the ground… _right?”_

“You scared Harrington?” muttered Jonathan as he struggled past with a heavy coil of rope.

“Wha? No!” cried Steve. “I just…I just dunno if it’s smart to-“

“Oh for God’s _sake!”_ snapped Nancy and picked up the shovel herself. “Steve, grab the other one. Don’t be a baby.”

 

Looking a little put out, Steve obeyed and they cleared the soil while Hopper and Jonathan roped of the area, chuckling a little to themselves. Nancy did not take Steve’s shit. A little like Tin-

 

“See anything?” shouted Hopper before his mind could go where it shouldn’t.

“Nah,” panted Steve. “Man, we’ve been digging for ages. I don’t think it’s…”

 

Hopper strode over and took the shovel, slicing the ground with aggression, suddenly really angry. How dare this _‘Upside-Down’_ come into his town? Make everything different? Ruin everything? Change the way Hopper saw the world? Bring it’s darkness into his life? How dare it-

 

The ground suddenly shuddered and seemingly gave way underneath Hopper. He clawed at the sides of the hole that was swallowing him up but he couldn’t hold on.

 

“Hopper!” yelled Steve, lunging forwards in an unintentional bout of heroics but still Hopper flailed, and slid, then tumbled down the dark tendrils into the Upside-Down’s new extension. 

 

He just managed to hear Nancy’s shrilly-shouted “Hopper!” before the creepers closed over the hole and Hopper was plunges into near darkness.

 

Alone. Trapped. In the Upside-Down.

 

“Okay,” he muttered to himself as he realised with horror what had just happened. “Don’t panic.”

 

He tried to claw through the tar-like fibres to get back to the surface but it was no use. He was in the real shit.

 

He coughed as the air stung his lungs and took off his jacket, pressing it to his face but maybe he was too late. The darkness was spinning. His ears were ringing. He was going to…

 


	20. Plan B

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demi's back, and not a moment too soon.

Hopper felt himself being lifted off the ground by a pair of grisly arms. Instead of devouring him, the beast cradled Hopper against his chest, very gently, and pressed an oxygen mask to his face.

 

“T…Tina,” he slurred, as the monster rumbled in reciprocation.

 

When the world had stopped spinning a little, Tina the Demogorgon laid Hopper on the ground and morphed, unembarrassed by her human nakedness, back into a woman.

 

“So,” rasped Hopper, slightly accusingly, seeing his saviour. “How is it you can change into a Demogorgon and back now?”

“I’m learning,” she replied simply.

“Yeah,” scoffed Hopper. “And so am I. I will _never_ trust you again.”

He said it brashly, but he was hurt.

 

“You didn’t trust me,” said Tina quietly. “You were in _love_ with me. There’s a difference.”

“Well,” said Hopper darkly. “That’s well over now.”

“Shame,” said Tina thoughtfully. “I really liked you.”

“Yeah,” growled Hopper, feeling rather alarming flickers of hope. “I really liked you too. So you’ll understand why all of this has stung me.”

“Yes,” said Tina. “And sorry.”

 

“And sorry,” muttered Hopper, shaking his head.

 

Always, _sorry._

 

“What are you doing here anyway?” he asked Tina, preferring to be angry with her.

“Some…undercover work, I guess,” she replied, refusing the offer of Hopper’s jacket. “And Hopper, this is all nothing you haven’t seen before.”

She gestured to herself.

 

“Thought you might be cold,” he said gruffly.

Tina shook her head.

“But thank you,” she laughed. “It’s just that I’m communing with nature.”

 

Hopper smiled for just a moment, then scolded himself. No, this was the enemy. The _enemy,_ Jim Hopper!

 

“So,” he snarled, businesslike again as he remembered _why_ she was the enemy. “Still feel like killing Eleven and Will?”

“Nope, she replied cooly. “We’re onto plan B now, but it’s a better one.”

Hopper laughed mirthlessly.

“Right, so murdering children was plan A, nice.”

 

Tina rounded on Hopper.

“Not just children,” she said solemnly. “I’m an inter-dimensional being too.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second,” said a frowning Hopper. _“You_ would have agreed to die?”

“That surprises you?” asked Tina quietly.

He considered for a moment, before giving a heavy huff.

“I guess not,” he sighed. “So this is really serious shit then?”

“Yes,” said Tina. “Yes it is.”

 

“So,” began Hopper, slightly nervously. “What _is_ plan B?”

“To close the doorway between the dimensions,” said Tina, sounding tired.

And in fact, she _looked_ very tired, Hopper was sorr- _pleased_ to notice.

 

“El opened it so _theoretically,”_ Tina exaggerated. “She _should_ be able to close it. And if she can’t, then Will and I could help.”

Hopper looked angry again. She _still_ wanted El. For fuck’s sake Tina! Is it too much to ask for-

“Hopper, I’m sorry,” said Tina, reading his expression effortlessly. “I’m just being honest with you. I know how much El means to you.”

 

Hopper looked into the woman's slightly sociopathic eyes. _Did_ she? He shrugged.

 

“She’s like my daughter,” he said, serious. “I lost my real daughter a few years back…it’s like…”

He gestured hopelessly. There weren’t words to describe these sort of things.

“El fills the space?” offered Tina.

“Kind of…” Hopper said slowly, in a measured way. “But not like a _replacement._ I’d do anything to get Sarah back…”

 

Tina looked at Hopper, seeing right through him.

“You hoped I was your daughter, didn’t you?” she asked quietly. “The night you found me in the summer.”

 

Hopper stopped dead, forgetting completely that he was meant to be angry with Tina.

“How did you know that?” he gasped.

She chuckled sadly and bowed her head to let Hopper see the ‘fourteen’ tattoo.

“It’s part of knowing people,” she said softly. “People’s grief moulds them. It’s important to know that. You are a different Jim Hopper now to when Sarah was alive, and to before I betrayed you.”

 

He looked away suddenly. For a woman with no emotion she’d hit that dead centre.

“I’m sorry if I’ve made you upset,” she continued gently.

Hopper shrugged again.

“Shit happens,” he said, sounding gruffer than normal. “And now I have El, and she’s the most important thing in my life now. I would give _any_ life to save hers.” 

 

Tina looked thoughtful for a moment, before remembering where she and Hoper actually _were._

“Here,” she offered, pointing above them. “Let me break the fibres and let you through to Hawkins again.”

 

Hopper politely averted his eyes as Tina scrambled upwards and pulled at the ceiling.

 

Hopeless! She was just like El. Clothes were warmth and nothing else. When you were warm enough then, well…

 

Hopper watched at the sticky wall melted under Tina’s touch and he had to shield his eyes at the sunlight seared through.

 

He was free!

 

“There!” said Tina. “Up you get!”

Hopper heaved himself out of the hole and looked down at Tina, in the hellish darkness where she had to stay.

 

“Tina,” Hopper said quietly. “I guess I forgot to mention…thanks for…for saving my life just then.”

Tina smiled.

“Finding your way into the Upside-Down on _purpose…”_ she said, shaking her head with mock despair. “That would be your hero streak coming out.” 

Tina laughed. 

“But don’t do that again,” she said with a stern look. “A dead Jim Hopper is _not_ what we need right now.”

 

She eyed him sternly.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, leaning haltingly forward. “And Tina…?”

“Yes?”

“Take care okay,” he said quickly, watching with a lump in his throat as the tendrils of the Upside-Down moved to trap her again.

“I always do, I’m a survivor” she said as her face disappeared from view.

 

As he heard a frantic Nancy, Jonathan and Steve call his name and dash over, Hopper smacked the ground to vent his feelings. It felt wrong to just let Tina stay there. He should be with her, wherever she went.

 

Whoever she was.

 


	21. Be Careful What You Ask For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything is gained...but everything is lost.

It was one week before the first death was reported. Well... not _death,_   _"disappearance"_ but, after Hopper arrived on the scene at so-called Mirkwood, he saw the black slithers of upside-down slathered over the ground and knew how bad the prospects were for the poor old man who had vanished there.

 

And _everything_ was dying. Crops, trees even livestock and by the hour it became more and more obvious that something had to be done. That’s why when Tina knocked on Hopper’s door early one morning (respectfully clothed) Hopper agreed to accompany her to the lab. And not a moment too soon.

 

Will.

 

“Mrs Byers,” said Tina to the frantic woman. “Can you tell me how long your son has been in this state?”

 

‘This state’ being a frenzy of wild thrashing.

 

“Er I…” Joyce waves her arms jerkily while she trembled. “I don’t know…”

Tina raised an eyebrow.

“That really isn’t very helpful, Joyce,” she said, sharing a look with Hopper.

It was funny how they were magically on the same side again. And happier for it.

 

“M-Maybe…an hour?” Joyce offered hopelessly. “I don’t know! This is how I found him after I got back…”

Her face crumpled.

“Will he…be okay?” she asked pleadingly.

“Yes,” said Hopper confidently, at the same time as Tina’s “quite possibly not.”

 

Hopper glared at Tina who stared back defiantly.

“We need _truth,_ right now Hopper!” she said impatiently.

 

Before Hopper could retort, a lab technician came skidding into the room.

 

“Ms Schneider,” he panted. “You need to see this!”

 

Tina followed the technician into the ‘basement’ which was, at this point, just a seething mess of toxic alternate-universe _slime._ The new addition was a...a-

 

“Holy God Almighty!” gasped Tina as the saw a rip of light like crazed glass splitting the very air itself as the atmosphere pulsed around it.

“Never mind upside-down,” whispered Dr Owens, petrified. “We’re going inside-out.”

 

Tina looked at him ferociously. 

“Could they do it?” she barked, there was no point on politeness at a time like this. “The children? I don’t doubt that Will Byers’ mind is alredy in there…”

She turned again to the horrifying _seething_ web of destruction before then.

 

“In all honesty,” he replied, strained, and afraid. “We don’t have anything else. It’s worth a try.”

 

So back upstairs they ran, to where Hopper and El were waiting with the panicking Joyce and the writhing Will.

 

“Hopper, we need El to close it,” said Tina, eyes boring into his. “It’s now or never. It is coming _now.”_

Hopper put his head in his hands.

“Tina I know, okay?" he growled, angry at his own helplessness. "I _know._ But I won’t let-“

“I’ll do it,” said a small voice.

All heads turned to look.

El spoke again.

 

“I’ll do it.”

 

“No,” said Hopper fiercely. “That is not happening! I will not let you-“

“WE’RE ALL DOOMED ANYWAY!” screamed Tina. “In theory, she’s dead either way, it’s worth a try!”

Hopper threw his hands up desperately. El was everything to him, Tina knew that.

 

But the world was everything to everyone. El knew that.

 

“Hopper,” she said quietly. “I opened it. Let me close it.”

 

It was a tense moment, but then the floor started to shake.

 

“... _Now_ would be the best time!” said Dr Owens urgently, ushering El out of the room.

 

Hopper followed with his jaw set in new determination as Tina knelt next to Joyce.

 

“Joyce, she said quietly. “Joyce, we need Will’s energy, he needs to be there.”

Joyce was shaking her head, eyes fixed on her son’s face.

“Joyce,” said Tina. “He’ll die if we don’t try.”

 

They had to try.

 

They seemed to fly down the gyrating flights of stairs the the basement.

“Get them inside!” instructed Tina as technicians rushed for biohazard suits.

“There’s no time!” she screamed as she pushed El and Will’s twitching form into the chamber.

 

After the chaos of alarms and shouting, the atmosphere inside the orb of the Upside-Down’s invasion was strangely peaceful. El didn’t glance behind her as the door closed. She knew what she had to do.

 

Squaring her wiry shoulders and hitching that particular look of El-ish determination on her face, she set off towards the light and the blooming darkness around it. Will whimpered in what was now an apparently troubled sleep.

 

“S’okay Will,” El said as she heaved him towards the doorway.

 

It really wasn’t okay.

 

The thing heaved and burped and rolled on itself as it ate up the world around it, turning order into chaos.

 

But El could help.

 

Help.

 

El placed Will gently on the floor and, taking a big breath, she raised both palms in front of her.

 

“What is she _doing?”_ asked one of the scientists watching in the relative (though not commendable) safety of the observation room. Tina shushed him. To be honest she didn’t quite know either.

 

But the Upside-Down certainly knew.

 

The gap in their universe groaned like an old pirate ship as El began to force it to close. And it was working…working…

 

“It’s not working!” shouted one of the technicians desperately watching the swelling grow evermore enormous. “It’s going to swallow up the kids! They can’t stop it!”

 

Tina looked at Hopper, precious Hopper. Looked him in the eyes. Looked in his _soul._ Remembered what he had said to her...

 

_…I would give any life to save El’s…_

 

Then Tina was moving.

 

“T-Tina?” asked Hopper warningly. “What are y- TINA _NO!”_

 

Tina rushed into the large room where Will was still unconscious and El was trying desperately to repel the tentacles of the monster with her mind, using every ounce of emotional strength she had...The anger for the loss of her mother, the hatred of the monster forcing it’s way into Hawkins, gratitude to Mike for being her first friend…

 

…But she was losing.

 

But Tina was on hand! She would help El to…wait what the hell was she doing?

 

“Get the fuck out of here!” she screeched to El who obediently began dragging Will away from the darkness, despite her confusion.

 

El shuffled backwards towards the door and the scientists let her in, biohazard be damned. But Tina…she was... 

 

She turned to face Hopper and he knew what that look meant. 

 

This is for you, Hopper. And El. I love you both.

 

And she stayed. Fourteen let the beast take her, wrap it’s cold arms around her while she flailed, flickering from one form to another, emitting as much energy as she could into the gaping, pulsing crack in the universe. She allowed herself to feel _everything_ …everything she’d ever denied herself to feel: sorrow, regret…and love.

 

The roar and crack as the floor crumbled away disguised Hopper’s desperate cries as he watched Tina let herself be destroyed in order to to destroy the sky monster, to save him and El.

 

The whole room shook and was bathed in a flash of brilliant white light. When at last the gathered group could see again there was…dust. A _shit tonne_ of dust and a gaping chasm filled with rubble…and no crack.

 

She’d done it! Tina loved Hopper enough to close the doorway. She loved him more than she hated the world for what it had done to her.

 

“Oh God!” cried the hysterical Joyce as she clutched her son close, conscious now the beast was dead. “I’m so glad you’re okay and El…”

She engulfed the girl in a hug, perhaps a little too enthusiastic for El's liking.

Then Joyce turned her manic affection upon the Chief.

“And…”

Hopper’s expression was enough to ensure even _Joyce’s_ silence.

 

 _Everyone_ was silent.

 

“Er…a moment please,” began Dr Owens respectfully, realising what Hopper had instantly known. “To remember Valentina Schneider, whom…most of you would have known as our own Margery Daniels... who gave her life so that we may be safe. God bless her.”

 

The room ached with shock.

 

“Hopper,” whispered Joyce hoarsely as she hugged him like another kid, and he needed it.

 

Tina was gone.


	22. Déjà Vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things just never change, do they?

Not long after the doorway had closed, the clean-up began. No more were alternate dimensions a threat to the world. The rubble was cleared away and, after three days of searching they found…

 

Well…they…they found the _body._

 

“Hopper,” Dr Owens said seriously as the chief came to say his goodbyes. “I’m … I’m really really sorry. Truly, I am.”

He sighed heavily.

“She wasn’t a happy woman,” he said. “She wasn’t, never has been. And this kind of redemption was exactly the way she would have wanted to have gone. She…You meant an awful lot to her Hopper, you did. However…this…this may not necessarily be a cause for mourning….”

 

Hopper nodded numbly. Fuck off doc.

 

“So…” said Owens carefully, watching Hopper to make sure that he didn’t get violent. “You can go in and see…see her, with a couple of our guys.”

 

Hopper shrugged glumly and went to turn away before the doctor grabbed his arm.

 

“Hopper,” Owens said urgently. “Look, Tina was a remarkable woman, nobody knows that better than us…”

 

(Which was true, Owens was the only one at the lab who knew about her past.)

 

“So just…take a moment to appreciate her, okay?” he breathed. “I mean really _look.”_

 

Sam Owens nodded meaningfully at Hopper but at this point the Chief didn’t care. How could he give a _damn_ about the doctor’s riddles when the love of his like was lying _dead_ on a _slab?_

 

The body was in the morgue, now taped off. Contaminated. 

 

Hopper went in slowly, almost sluggishly, weighed down with grief.

 

And there she was.

 

Unable to approach her directly because of the “biohazard”, he stared at Tina from inside his protective suit. Since he was unable to touch his face, his tears ran untamed down his cheeks.

 

He looked at her poor broken body. The pitiful human remains of the person who had saved the world. That couldn’t be fair.

 

He ran his hand tenderly over Tina’s face, her _real_ face. The one he’d fallen in love with. Her dead face.

 

Hopper felt the pain cripple him. She looked so lifeless, it was hard to believe that she’d ever been alive before. She was just so…She wasn’t…

 

No… _wait_ …hang on a minute. Something just wasn’t right.

 

With shaking hands, Hopper gently tilted Tina’s head to look for the diagnostic feature that would have confirmed her identity. 

 

Hopper’s breath hitched in his throat and he grinned for a pounding second. What a nerve they had pulling that one again!

 

It wasn’t there.

 

Realising suddenly what the doctor had been trying to communicate to him, Hopper dropped the head of the body carelessly and walked sedately to the car where Joyce was waiting, having completely forgiven Tina for everything after she had saved Will…and was safely dead.

 

“Hopper,” she said quietly. “What’s wrong?”

 

“Her tattoo,” Hopper almost laughed. “There’s no tattoo. That isn’t Fourteen.”


	23. Nowhere To Be Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...But then, other things do change.

 

Life in Hawkins returned to normal with scary efficiency after the doorway had closed but, of course, there had to be some changes.

 

Hopper and El had to move to the city to avoid questions about Valentina’s disappearance, it being assumed that they moved together (El being ‘Valentina’s’ alleged daughter). 

 

However, that wasn't a bad thing, since in Indianapolis they weren’t known and El could start school with the new identity that Dr Owens had managed to produce for her. She was happy and was able to visit her Hawkins friends about once every few weeks (and after two years of this, she and Mike were perhaps a little more than just friends).

 

But yes, it had been _two years,_ and no Tina. By this point, even the ever-hopeful Jim Hopper had to give up the idea that she was coming back. But he believed that she was _alive,_ and that was enough, because she had granted him El’s life in return.

 

But the question was always there…

 

…Where _was_ Tina?…


	24. The Explanation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fate works in mysterious ways.

Tina opened her eyes to a bright light and the sting of disinfectant in her nose. Machines were bleeping.

 

“Hop-Hopper?” she groaned.

“See?” said an unfamiliar voice dripping with professionalism. “Told you Chief. She just appeared out of nowhere and seemed to know you.”

 

Tina heard Hopper’s delightfully stressed sigh. 

 

“Doc,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I have never seen this woman in my life, I don’t know…”

 

Tina felt her stomach clench, though she kept her eyes shut and her face smooth. She heard the honesty in Hopper’s voice. 

 

He was telling the truth. He didn’t know who she was.

 

Tina opened her blue eyes to meet Hopper’s brown ones, deep-set in his strong face, a face that took on a rather dreamy look as he gazed at the woman who had been found, filthy in the woods, asking after a man who had never met her.

 

“Er…” Hopper turned to the doctor while he pointed at Tina. “Can I…?”

“Sure, go ahead,” said the doctor, glad to be able to deal with his other patients. 

Patients that made sense.

“See what you can find out. I’ll be just outside if you need me.”

With that the doctor left jauntily leaving Hopper with this mysterious woman.

 

“Okay…” said Hopper carefully, coming to sit by the bed. “Well…as you… seem to know, my name in Jim Hopper, and I’m chief of police in this town. What’s your name?”

“Tina Schneider,” said Tina, scrutinising Hopper.

 

Why did he not _remember?_

 

Tina looked around.

“Am…am I in the hospital?” she asked.

“Yes,” Hopper replied gently. “And we think something bad might have happened to you in the woods, so cam you tell me anything you might remember?”

 

Tina looked at Hopper. What could she say?

 

“Bad?” she repeated quietly.

Hopper nodded. 

“Where’s Eleven?” she asked.

 

Hopper was completely taken aback. Okay, so maybe she would have known him as the chief of police, but how the fuck did she know his _daughter?_ By her _nickname,_ no less?

 

“How do you know Eleven?” he asked, a little worried.

God only knows what that kid got up to.

“How do you _not_ know _me?”_ whispered Tina, imploringly.

 

Hopper looked at Tina, really, really _looked._ _Did_ he know her? He did feel a tug towards her but…

No, he didn’t know her.

 

“Mrs Schneider,” said Hopper seriously. “I afraid I don’t know who you are…”

 

He looked at her, with pity now. Maybe time to broach a difficult subject. After examination, they had figured out where this woman may have come from.

“Did you…come from a…facility or…some kind of asylum?” he asked awkwardly. “We noticed you have ‘fourteen’ tattooed on your neck.”

 

“The lab!” burst Tina in alarm. “What’s going on at Hawkins lab! Did I close the doorway? Did it work?”

 

Hopper looked at Tina. And he’d thought _Joyce Byers_ was crazy.

 

“Er…” he began. “There… _is_ no lab in Hawkins, never has been.”

 

Tina’s mind began to whirr. Hopper didn’t know her. No lab. This wasn’t the Hawkins she knew this was a-

 

Tina gasped.

“Holy shit!” she spluttered.

 

An alternate dimension. Alternate universe. She’d passed across dimensions with the energy she’d used to close the doorway to the Upside-Down, alone with the energy of El and Will.

 

“What?” asked Hopper, panicked at the idea that this woman should be troubled by anything.

He looked at her perfect, incredulous face.

 

“Tina?” he said softly as he leaned in.

She shook her head.

“You wouldn’t believe me,” she said hollowly.

 

Hopper tilted his head. And Tina considered him. Actually, no, he _would_ believe her. That’s why she found him when she was trapped as a demogorgon, why he believed Joyce when Will had gone missing. 

 

And why he deserved somebody who wasn’t a killer and, in this life, he’d never have to know that she was.

 

Hopper smiled his crinkly-eyed half-smirk.

 

“Hey,” he muttered softly. “Try me.”

 

As Tina happily discovered, Hopper was the same, just as warm, just as worn, but hopeful. And, even through a rip in time and space, he still thought that Tina had to be the funniest and most beautiful woman in the world. 

 

It wasn’t long before she found out he was single, his wife, Terry, had died of a drug overdose years ago. LSD, apparently, that was _her thing._ There were tears in Hopper’s eyes as he told Tina but still hope, because she had left him with two beautiful daughters, Sarah and Jane.

 

Sarah took very well to the idea of Hopper having a girlfriend. She was very sensible and smart one, though those double-dates with her boyfriend Jonathan and those two Nancy and … gah, what was his name? Harrington? Well, the _arrogant_ one, were going to have to stop.

 

Her younger sister, Jane, had _not_ taken so kindly to this… _Tina_ against whom she had formed an immediate and inexplicable grudge. 

 

Jane (known affectionately as ‘Eleven’ since this was the number of detentions she got in her first week of high school) had fully embraced punk culture and stormed along the corridors of Hawkins High with her formidable friend, ‘Mad Max’, together having broken Max’s brother’s _jaw_ after he had punched Will for being gay. Billy Hargrove had to be _very_ careful when Eleven Hopper was around.

 

And poor Will Byers! Since his brother Jonathan had learning-difficulties, he got much more attention from their mom and Will was left to his own devices quite a lot. Not that that was a _bad_ thing, he and Mike _were_ making progress…

 

But they weren’t the only ones. Maybe something somewhere had recognised that 'Hopper and Tina' was just meant to be.


	25. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of this story, and the start of a new one.

**Six months later.**

 

 

“Sooooo…” said Callahan slyly, leaning over Hopper’s desk. “You and the new Polish woman huh? The one that got lost in the woods.”

He gestured over to the new Police Receptionist.

_“Val-en-tina,”_ he said slowly, miming kisses in the air.

 

“She’s East-German,” said Hopper impatiently. “And what in the hell are you talking about?”

“Well, Powell told me you invited her around to your place for Christmas,” Callahan burst out gleefully, waggling his eyebrows.

 

“Okay, _first,”_ said Hopper sternly. “She said she had to think about it, and _second,_ Jane and Sarah are going to be there so I don’t know what you expect we’re going to do, and _third_ it’s only because she’s new here. She doesn’t have any family in the country and I just thought it might be nice for her to have some company.”

“Hey, if she really said she has to think about it, it’s a date,” sniggered Callahan.

 

Powell leaned over eagerly.

“Yeah, and maybe by next Christmas you might have a little family of your own.”

“Like a three-month-old baby together!” Callahan guffawed.

“Shut up!” said Hopper, though he was smiling. “That’s my business.”

 

“Well,” said Callahan. “Good on you man.”

He clapped Hopper on the shoulder.

“Just make sure she doesn’t turn into a monster,” he said with a wink.

Hopper smiled.

 

Tina, a _monster?_ Yeah right!

 

“Oh,” he said with a chuckle. “I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading! And I hope that you liked the ending. Originally, I was going to straight-out kill Tina off and then I took pity and decided to pull a 'secondary AU' instead.
> 
> But again, it means so much that you have read to the end.
> 
> Auf Wiedersehen!


End file.
